VATICAN CITY — When Pope Leo XIV stepped out on the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to greet the gang for the primary time after his May 8 election, liturgical vogue aficionados across the globe took be aware: Gone was the straightforward white cassock and silver cross favored by Pope Francis. Again was the purple satin mozzetta shoulder cape, the burgundy stola with gold embroidery and a gold cross held by a double-stranded silken gold wire.
Over Leo’s first few weeks, the thrill grew amongst liturgical fashion-conscious Catholics as they observed new additions to the wardrobe, or quite a return to the outdated additions of the papal wardrobe: cufflinks, white pants, lace.
After Francis’ revolutionary papacy, Vatican watchers are actually questioning if Leo’s return to the previous sartorial look means a return to the previous on different issues too, together with extra substantial coverage points. However for tailors on the elite handful of liturgical tailoring retailers in Rome, there may be hope that Leo’s return to the fancier garb of popes previous will imply a boon to enterprise if Leo’s conventional look has a trickle-down impact from the pope to monks and all these in between.
In keeping with the Rev. John Wauck, professor of church communication on the Pontifical Holy Cross College in Rome, Leo’s clothes selections are a “return to kind,” and his apparel much like that worn by Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II and different popes going again to the center ages.
They present “a respect for custom,” he stated.
Such respect for the papal workplace is vital for many conservative Catholics. Many conservatives and traditionalists soured on Francis’ casual fashion and disdain for custom, which reached its pinnacle along with his his crackdown on the outdated Latin Mass. The outdated liturgy was celebrated earlier than the modernizing reforms of the Sixties Second Vatican Council; Francis vastly restricted entry to the outdated liturgy, saying it had turn out to be a supply of division in parishes.
Leo has proven robust familiarity with Latin, and has taken to singing the Sunday noontime prayer in Latin. Some traditionalist Catholics are hoping Leo will take the pro-Latin path even additional and reverse Francis to permit better use of the standard Latin Mass.
Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology at Villanova College, the place Leo went to school, stated it is too early to inform if Leo will reverse Francis’ reform.
“It stays to be seen if Leo’s extra conventional apparel and liturgical fashion signifies that he’ll change Francis’ robust choices limiting the so-called ‘Latin Mass,’” he stated.
That stated, Faggioli stated U.S. conservatives appears notably proud of Leo’s conventional apparel, given Francis’ disdain for the style pomp of the papacy.
“On this sense, Francis may need been a parenthesis or an interlude, greater than a changer of the custom in ‘papal fashion,’” he stated in an electronic mail.
At his inaugural Mass on Might 18, 2025, Pope Leo XIV reached out his arm to sprinkle holy water and revealed a shirt with cufflinks, which Francis had largely averted. He was additionally sporting an amitto, and an alb held in place by a cingulum. For the non-experts, the amitto is a lacy linen material that goes across the neck, the alb is the white tunic worn underneath the ceremonial vestment, and the cingulum is a braided rope with tassels that serves as a belt.
If it weren’t for photographers’ lengthy lenses relentlessly educated on the pope’s each gesture, Leo’s swap from Francis’s commonplace black pants to extra conventional white papal trousers would have gone utterly unnoticed.
Along with the clothes adjustments, Leo has returned to another traditions of the Vatican that Francis eschewed.
He has proven himself prepared to just accept the standard “baciamano” or kissing of his ring. Francis disliked having his ring kissed and infrequently pulled his hand away if somebody tried to kiss it.
“I believe that what we see with Pope Leo is a willingness to embrace custom, even when it dangers seeming maybe extra formal than Pope Francis,” Wauck stated. The thought is that “seeing that custom as a treasure to be conserved and embraced versus one thing that makes one really feel maybe a little bit bit standoffish.”
It stays to be seen whether or not Leo will transfer into the papal condo within the Apostolic Palace, which stood empty throughout the 12-year Francis papacy. Francis shocked the world by selecting to reside in a small room on the Santa Marta residence on the Vatican, consuming his meals within the frequent eating room.
For the Rev. Castro Prudencio, that is all a lot ado about nothing. “For Pope Francis it was simplicity. At all times. And Pope Leo has taken up what Pope Benedict had and lots of others. That’s what the church is like,” he stated.
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