The Pope’s Santa Claus Hat
April 14th, 2008 by Menachem Wecker
David Gibson’s RNS story on “Do the clothes make the pope — or the church?” argues “as important as Benedict’s words will be in introducing the pope to an American audience that knows little about him, it may be just as important to check out what he’s wearing.” Also:
With increasing regularity, Benedict has been reintroducing elaborate lace garments and monarchical regalia that have not been seen around Rome in decades, even centuries …
On Good Friday he donned a “fiddleback” vestment dating to the Counter-Reformation era of the 16th century, and he has used a tall gilded papal throne not seen in years. And that’s not to mention the ermine-trimmed red velvet mozzetta, a shoulder cape, or the matching camauro, a Santa Claus- like cap that art students will recognize from Renaissance portraiture.
As Robert Mickens, the Rome correspondent for The Tablet of London, put it, the pope’s aides have “been busy raiding the liturgi cal storage rooms and the Vatican museums in an attempt to return the papal liturgies to their pre-Vatican II splendor” — a reference to the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s that ushered in reforms simplifying many church rites and scal ing back grandiose vesture.
Beth Says
that’s freaky. i wish i hadn’t ever seen that photo. i think i am going to have nightmares about the grinch.
Apr 15th, 2008 at 6:23 am