Presto change-oh! It’s the skullcap swap

Monday Oct. 21, UPDATE and CORRECTION:

First a correction from an attentive Facebook fan who sent us a link showing how the cap swap custom goes way back before our 21st-century popes.

I also heard back from one of the Providence College students, who tried to give Pope Francis a new zucchetto. Here’s her backstage look at how it all happened:

Joe had noticed the tradition of the zuchetto exchange, and had wanted to try it for himself. As we all pointed to it, Pope Francis took notice of it and stopped the Popemobile while he had been passing by.

Prior to this, a friend we were with said that she wanted to write the pope a note, to which I replied that I had a stack of bright pink post-it notes. Upon writing the note and all signing our names, we safety pinned it to the zuchetto to ensure it stayed in place for the Pope to read, which is why he didn’t keep the note. It read, “Providence College LOVES Papa Francesco. [signed by seven PC students].

When Pope Francis stopped in front of us, I couldn’t even react. It was like a dream; I was speechless. He had read our note and told us that the zuchetto was too big. He was so close to us and had been so engaged with us as regular audience members (even for the 30 seconds that it was) that it was so surreal.

 

A pilgrim trying to give Pope Benedict XVI a zucchetto when he arrived for a general audience in St. Peter’s Square June 1, 2011. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY — The “zucchetto switcheroo” is a long-held tradition for popes and pilgrims.

A guest presents the pope with a brand new white skullcap and the pope is expected to take it and swap it with the one he’s wearing on his head.

While many pilgrims are familiar with the practice, we’ve noticed a newly elected pope usually needs a quick explanation from an aide or security guard when someone suddenly presents him with a fresh new cap purchased from the papal tailors at Gammarelli’s.

But once they know the drill, everyone from Blessed John Paul II to Popes Benedict and Francis has happily engaged in the tradition, letting the lucky pilgrim get a souvenir of a lifetime.

Joseph Day, a student at Providence College, gets back the new zucchetto he had handed Pope Francis before the start of the general audience Oct. 16. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

One such lucky pilgrim at yesterday’s general audience was a student from Providence College, R.I. who is spending a semester studying in Rome.

Joseph Day, a native of Rehoboth, Mass., stretched his arm out over the heads of his classmates to give Pope Francis a zucchetto with a hot pink sticky note stuck inside.

Pope Francis briefly putting on a new zucchetto given to him by a Providence College student at the Oct. 16 general audience in St. Peter’s Square. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Our photographer, Paul Haring, was there with his telephoto lens to capture the moment and the secreted note. According to news reports, Day had written “Providence College loves Pope Francis.”

The pope took off his own cap and put on Day’s gift, but then he gave it right back after glancing at the note.

It’s become a bit of a custom for Pope Francis to choose to keep his own skullcap after he places the gifted one briefly on his head and returns it to the gifter.

It’s just a guess on my part, but maybe he’s doing it to avoid any embarrassing misfits as happened in Rio this summer when someone gave him an oversize cap that looked like it had been stuffed in a pocket or backpack:

Pope Francis greets the crowd at the World Youth Day welcoming ceremony on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro July 25. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Video: Missionary pope: Francis in Brazil

Catholic News Service looks at the impact of the first Latin American pope’s visit to his native continent.

Video: Millions on Copacabana beach conclude WYD

A Saturday night vigil and Sunday morning Mass conclude World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro.

Pope urges Brazilian elites to embrace dialogue and ‘social humility’

RIO DE JANEIRO (CNS) — Speaking to political, economic and cultural leaders of a Brazil recently shaken by mass anti-government protests, Pope Francis called for a “culture of encounter” and said dialogue is the only way to promote social peace.

The Pope made his remarks July 27 in Rio’s Municipal Theater, to an audience representing what the Vatican’s official schedule described as the “ruling class of Brazil.”

Pope Francis blesses Walmyr Junior, 28, during a meeting with political, economic and cultural leaders at Municipal Theater in Rio de Janeiro July 27. The young man, who overcame drug abuse and is now a youth minister, shared his story of life transform ation — his discovery of a loving God and church. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

“When leaders in various fields ask me for advice, my response is always the same: dialogue, dialogue, dialogue,” he said. “Today, either we stake all on dialogue, on the culture of encounter, or we all lose.”

The pope did not explicitly refer to the series of demonstrations in Brazilian cities that started last month, aimed at a range of grievances including government corruption, unsatisfactory public education and health services, the high cost of public transportation and police brutality. But he pointed to dialogue as a third way “between selfish indifference and violent protest.”

“A country grows when constructive dialogue occurs between its many rich cultural components: popular culture, university culture, youth culture, artistic and technological culture, economic culture, family culture and media culture,” he said.

Pope Francis also called on his listeners to share “fraternal responsibility” for Brazilian society, “rehabilitating politics, which is one of the highest forms of charity.”

“The future demands of us a humanistic vision of the economy and a politics capable of ensuring greater and more effective participation on the part of all, eliminating forms of elitism and eradicating poverty,” he said.

Noting the importance of Christianity to the country’s cultural heritage, the pope said the church offered an “integral vision of the human person” that is “true to Brazilian identity and capable of building a better future for all.”

“Christianity combines transcendence and incarnation,” he said. “It brings ever new vitality to thought and life, in contrast to the dissatisfaction and disillusionment which creep into hearts and spread in the streets.”

Yet the pope endorsed the separation of church and state, historically a volatile topic in Latin America, where the Catholic Church long held a privileged legal position in many countries, but where it has more recently clashed with governments over issues including abortion and same-sex marriage.

“Peaceful coexistence between different religions is favored by the laicity of the state, which, without appropriating any one confessional stance, respects and esteems the presence of the religious factor in society, while fostering its concrete expressions,” he said.

Before his remarks, the pope was greeted on the stage of the ornate century-old theater by Walmyr Junior, 28, a lay minister in the Rio archdiocese who recounted his upbringing as an orphan in one of the city’s notorious “favelas,” or slums, his experience of drug abuse, and his recovery with the help of the church, which led to his graduation from the city’s Pontifical Catholic University.

Junior was overcome with emotion before finishing his speech, and embraced Pope Francis to loud applause from the audience.

Later, the pope greeted representatives of some indigenous Amazonian tribes appearing in their traditional dress, and briefly posed wearing a large feathered hat they gave him.

“The pope was saying what each one of us would have wanted to say if we had been on stage,” said a member of the audience, Alvaro Siviero, a concert pianist from Sao Paolo. “We saw there a person of common sense who didn’t speak in the way that is usual in politics.”

Siviero said the pope’s decision to address them in his native Spanish instead of the national language of Portuguese — for which he asked forgiveness at the start of his speech — was welcomed as a sign of humility.

“He wanted to talk to our hearts, not our minds only,” the pianist said. “His Spanish was from the heart, it was a universal language.”

Video: Rio re-stages the Stations of the Cross

Youths follow the Way of the Cross during a World Youth Day dramatization of the Passion July 26.

The pope, WYD and the power of the cross

An actor portrays Jesus in the Stations of the Cross during World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro July 26. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

RIO DE JANEIRO — With his cross and resurrection, Christ promises to walk with and ease the burden of every suffering person, whether that suffering comes from violence, addiction, a broken family, hunger, persecution or the death of a loved one, Pope Francis said.

The traditional Friday mood change of World Youth Day took place July 26 as the pope and more than 1 million young people returned to Copacabana beach to meditate on the Stations of the Cross.

In his reflection, Pope Francis told the young people that in every encounter with Christ’s cross, they can draw strength from him and they can leave the heaviest part of their burden with him.

Through the cross, the pope said, Jesus also unites himself with “those young people who have lost faith in the church, or even in God, because of the counter-witness of Christians and ministers of the Gospel.”

Pope Francis did not get specific about the forms of counter-witness, but his words brought to mind the well-known Via Crucis meditations written in 2005 by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, only weeks before he became Pope Benedict XVI, in which he denounced “filth” in the church, which was widely interpreted as a reference to clerical sex abuse.

At the same time, Pope Francis also has denounced the counter-witness of clergy and other church personnel who see ministry more as career or who drive around in fancy cars or exhibit an extravagant lifestyle in other ways.

The 14 traditional Stations of the Cross in Rio were presented by actors and readers on 13 stages along the Copacabana waterfront and on the main stage where Pope Francis sat.

Young people carrying the World Youth Day cross at the opening ceremony last night. (CNS/Paul Haring)

The meditations read during the service also focused on drawing strength from Christ’s cross and healing one’s wounds in the wounds of Christ. Each written from the perspective of a different person in the church — including a missionary, an engaged couple, a pro-life activist, students, those who use social networks — the meditations asked Jesus for the strength to follow and imitate his service to others.

Pope Francis began his reflection recalling the pilgrimage of the World Youth Day cross, which has been carried across oceans, mountains and plains in preparation for each international youth gathering. The cross was carried from station to station during the evening service.

“It is, as it were, almost ‘steeped’ in the life experiences of the countless young people who have seen it and carried it,” the pope said. “No one can approach and touch the cross of Jesus without leaving something of himself or herself there, and without bringing something of the cross of Jesus into his or her own life.”

At the center of the Christian faith, he said, is the certainty that “Jesus, with his cross, walks with us and takes upon himself our fears, our problems and our sufferings, even those which are deepest and most painful.”

Pope Francis did not leave his mention of the wounds vague; he said Jesus united himself “to the silence of the victims of violence, those who can no longer cry out, especially the innocent and defenseless,” to families in difficulty, to those addicted to drugs and to “every person who suffers from hunger in a world where tons of food are thrown out each day.”

The suffering Jesus walks with those persecuted for their faith or discriminated against because of the color of their skin, the pope said. And he draws close to “so many young people who have lost faith in political institutions because they see in them only selfishness and corruption.”

But it is not only the faults, violence or wrongs committed by others that Jesus takes upon himself, Pope Francis said. “The cross of Christ bears the suffering and the sin of mankind, including our own.”

Among the special guest at the Via Crucis were 35 “cartoneros,” or trash pickers, who had come from Argentina hoping to see the Argentine pope. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said Pope Francis sent someone out to find them and give them seats near him on the stage. The pope greeted them before the prayers began.

Video: Pope Francis in action

Pope Francis heard confessions, took a popemobile ride, recited the Angelus, and lunched with youths in Rio de Janeiro July 26.

Video: Beach celebration with Pope Francis

Pope Francis was welcomed to Copacabana beach for World Youth Day with song, dance, and drama July 25.

We’re having fun on Twitter

Originally posted on CNS at Rio 2013:

We love our readers, especially those who connect to us via social media. We had this exchange with some of them earlier this morning:

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#PopeFrancis is at Quinta da Boa Vista park to hear confessions of #WYD pilgrims.—
Catholic News Svc (@CatholicNewsSvc) July 26, 2013

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Pope and young people down by the seashore

RIO DE JANEIRO — The rain and the wind did not dampen the spirits of hundreds of thousands of World Youth Day participants this evening and they didn’t dampen the pope’s either. In fact, he seemed in no hurry to leave, repeating phrases, ad-libbing encouragement and simply readjusting his cape every time the wind blew it over his head.

Pope greets crowd as he arrives at World Youth Day welcome ceremony on Copacabana beach. (CNS/Paul Haring)

In his first remarks to the young people at the huge World Youth Day celebration on the beach July 25, Pope Francis spoke of belonging to the great family of faith and that included a moment of silent prayer for Sophie Moriniere, a French WYD pilgrim who died July 17 in a car accident in French Guiana.

The celebration also included a “shout out” to retired Pope Benedict XVI, who chose Rio as the site of WYD 2013. Pope Francis told the young people that Pope Benedict was watching on television from Rome and had promised to pray for them.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said an estimated 1 million people were on the beach for the ceremony with the pope.

Pope Francis said he knew the youths had a variety of reasons for being part of World Youth Day and a variety of levels of previous involvement with the church. “But today you are all here — or better yet, we are all here together as one in order to share the faith and the joy of an encounter with Christ, of being his disciples,” the pope said in his introductory remarks.

Katherine Tanadi, 21, from the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in Singapore told Catholic News Service that World Youth Day already “has been a life-changing experience.”

Standing on the beach, she said Rio was her first WYD and “I have met young Catholics from all over the world. It’s incredible.”

Ida Szuzepaniak, 25, from Poznan, Poland, said the experience of being in Rio with hundreds of thousands of her peers has taught her “that I have to have more patience, I need to pray more.”

In a homily during a Liturgy of the Word, Pope Francis told the young people that Jesus asks each person gathered on the seashore: “Do you want to be my disciple? Do you want to be my friend? Do you want to be a witness to my Gospel?”

The Gospel reading for the service was St. Luke’s account of the transfiguration of Jesus, including St. Peter’s line, “Master, it is good that we are here.”

In his homily, the pope echoed those words, telling the young people that it is always good to be gathered around Jesus and to keep Jesus at the center of their lives.

Faith, he said, is a “Copernican revolution,” an operation that shifts concerns and priorities so that they revolve around Jesus and not the individual or false idols.

“Certainly possessions, money and power can give a momentary thrill, the illusion of being happy,” he said, “but they end up possessing us and making us always want to have more, never satisfied.”

Instead, he said, with Christ as the center of your life “you will never be disappointed.”

Pope Francis asked the young people to think about a meal and what it means to “put on salt,” then he told them, “Put on faith and your life will take on a new flavor.”

“Put on hope and every one of your days will be enlightened and your horizon will no longer be dark,” he told them. “Put on love and your life will be like a house built on rock, your journey will be joyful because you will find many friends to journey with you.”

“Put on Christ,” he said, “you will find a friend in whom you can always trust” and “your life will be full of his love.”

Getting practical about matters, the pope told the young people that Christ is waiting to wash away their sins in the sacrament of penance, to nourish them with his body in the Eucharist and to encounter them through their Christian peers who will give them friendship, encouragement and support.

As winter darkness settled over the crowd, Pope Francis told the young people to offer the witness of faith and the service of charity to others, “carrying to this world a ray of his light.”