Source : NEW INDIAN EXPRESS NEWS
Balcony mishaps
Their best guesses are sometimes off.
Gammarelli said they never imagined that Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla would become pope in October 1978. They had considered Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio a candidate in 2005 (when Benedict XVI was elected) but not in 2013, when Bergoglio became the church’s first Latin American pope.
Back in 1958, the portly John XXIII appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica with safety pins holding together the back of his cassock, after a too-small size was mistakenly grabbed, forcing aides to open the back.
Gammarelli said that throughout Francis’ 12-year papacy he tried to persuade the pope to wear white pants under his cassock. But Francis stuck with the black trousers of a priest, a reminder to himself and everyone that he was a pastor at heart.
Francis’ unadorned style
Mancinelli, at his shop just steps from the Vatican, has made cassocks for the last three popes: St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.
He got to know Benedict when he was a cardinal, living near Mancinelli’s shop. Francis later invited him to his apartment in the Santa Marta residence, marking “the beginning of a very pleasant encounter period.”
While Gammarelli won’t make the cassocks on speculation, Mancinelli is making three to give to the Vatican, in Francis’ simple, unadorned style, all in white.
“Compared with the other two, Francis preferred much simpler and much more practical things,” he said, also taking costs into account.
Only after the words “Habemus Papam!” are announced from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica will it be clear whether the Catholic Church’s 267th pontiff will follow Francis’s unembellished example or will bring back traditional papal trappings, like flashes of red.
SOURCE :- NEW INDIAN EXPRESS
