Pope Benedict, style guru for the noughties

Pope Benedict’s sartorial stylings have made news recently, in lifestyle magazines and in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.

Last year Esquire magazine acclaimed Pope Benedict as a style guru, naming him accessoriser of the year, an ecclesial Carrie Bradshaw, if you will. He certainly is an innovator. Notably, he has brought back into the public a summer hat once favoured by Pope John XXIII  one might call a papal sombrero, and in winter sports the ermine-lined velvet hat which at first sight this looks a bit like a Santa hat thus potentially raising the pope’s appeal to children and a red velvet cape, also trimmed with ermine.

Unless you are poor or an Inuit, killing animals for fur is, of course, objectionable. I don’t know whether the cute weasels are slaughtered for any other purpose, but I hope that none needed to die for papal apparel.

Besides being an elegant dresser, Pope Benedict reportedly wears designer sunglasses. The Vatican denies that his red leather slippers are made by fashion high-enders Prada. And if they were, should we care? Why should the pope not enjoy some temporal comforts?

The Vatican’s newspaper in late June weighed in on such frivolous speculations. Yes, it said, Pope Benedict cares deeply about what he wears, but not because he is narcissistic.
Indeed, L’Osservatore pointed out, Pope Benedict is a simple and unpretentious man, corroborating the point by allusion to a plain black sweater he visibly wore beneath his vestments just after becoming pontiff in April 2005 an event which requires a complete sartorial metamorphosis. The Holy Father’s wardrobe staff presumably has since then ensured that plain black sweaters would not peek out of papal vestments.

It’s not that Pope Benedict is a snazzy dresser, L’Osservatore said, but that his vestments represent the anticipation of the new clothes of the resurrected body of Christ.

The pope, in short, does not wear Prada, but Christ, said the article, written by the Spanish novelist Juan Manuel de Prada, alas not associated with the fashion house that shares his surname. When you next witness a priest celebrating the Holy Eucharist, keep in mind Mr de Prada’s words: The priest does not choose such ornaments because of an aesthetic vice he does it to put on the new clothes of Christ. I’m intrigued to learn what the papal sombrero is intended to symbolise.

Of course, it is good that a priest’s vestments should in some way reflect the glory of Christ, and symbolise the new life we receive in the Eucharist. At the same time, Christ does not renege on his presence in the Eucharist if it is presided over by a priest wearing unfashionable and musty vestments. Indeed, some might prefer plain vestments as a sign of the priests (and our) unworthiness in the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ.

How we dress for Mass is a subject that apparently exercises many Catholics. My own expectations in the matter would tend to concentrate on personal hygiene, not fashion. Only once has a garment worn in church shocked me a t-shirt bearing a sexually explicit slogan worn by a teenage girl. I don’t believe suggestive clothing is appropriate for Mass, but to say suggestive is subjective.

Just who is qualified to draw the skirtline? Surely it is preferable that teenagers should voluntarily and joyfully come to Mass wearing clothing of which their elders might not altogether approve than not going at all. The state-of-grace of the communicant is more important than his or her state of dress.

I presume Robert Mugabe attends Mass smartly attired in suit and tie (surely he wouldn’t wear those ghastly shirts sporting his own image?). Who is more worthy of receiving the Body of Christ: the despot with blood on his hands or fellow parishioners with flip-flops on their feet?

The Last Supper was no gala event. For all we know, John hadn’t shaved, Bartholomew had forgotten to deodorise, Timothy was still on a shampoo boycott, Peter’s cloak was stained (he having left a wife who did all the washing), and Philip’s halitosis was none too pleasant.

And perhaps Judas pitched up in a smart double-breasted number.