Some recent photos of the Holy Father over at the unsurpassable fount of papal pictures, the Papa Ratzinger Forum, show him wearing a white Greca (cassock-covering coat) at the General Audience.Now these coats, even for Cardinals, are usually worn in black. But knowing Gammarelli's, I expect if you walked in there and said "Look, I'm Pope John the twenty-fourth and I need a white Greca", they would probably ask if you wanted it in polycotton, wool or mohair.
Update: White greca experts have posted links to pictures of several other Popes sporting this garment - see the combox.
11 comments:
As everyone on line loves clothes, I am suer you will have many comments, but Popes has always worn a white one. Cardinal would waet black because it piano habito, which is black, I am sure you don't need reminding one would never wear a choir cassock in the street.
Not sure that the white greca (overcoat over the cassock) is so common.
In England it has been considered not proper to wear the cassock in the street because of anti-Catholic laws prohibiting it. Local law after the re-establishment of the hierarchy laid down the clerical suit as street dress for clerics.
Now that the law has fallen into desuetude with many clerics wearing the open-necked shirt and patterned pullover as a substitute for clerical dress, many of us feel free to wear the cassock in the street when we feel like it, as is the custom in Rome.
Not that I have any interest such things but here is a video of Leo XII wearing a long coat, here it is wore open, I suppose it might be a zimmara and not greca.
http://marymagdalen.blogspot.com/2007/01/leo-xiii-on-film.html
I think that Bob is saying that the greca is always street dress and the scarlet cassock is always choir dress. In the past when progressing to a Church in choir dress a cloak, or even cappa magna of the same colour as the cassock would be worn.
In the case of the Pope, his "street" dress is always white hence the white greca.
There are pictures of JPii wearing a greca, though he normally wore the papal (scarlet) cappa romana.
Fr Tim, the white greca has been worn by many pontiffs.
Pius XI http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6322/78/1600/capellopio11.jpg
Pius XII http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6322/78/1600/pio12.jpg
Paul VI http://www.adr.it/Photo/1970_1501.jpg
JPII http://www.usccb.org/pope/gallery/group.jpg
Among others I should think.
i think the Pope looks super Cool!I think Priests wearing the Cassock even in the street look super Cool! i think we'd have more vocations if more of them did.The Oratorians are fabulous! Who is inspired by an open-necked shirt & pullover? Not me!
I hope Gammarelli's has better taste then to suggest Poly-cotton to anyone...
I can understand for those of us who must economize, but for the Pope!
Many thanks to you white greca spotters!
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n311/paparatzifan/benedetto11754.jpg
Pope Benedict XVI and Msgr Georg Gänswein showcasing the white and the black greca
Are the urls complete? They don't appear to be so...
"Look, I'm Pope John the twenty-fourth and I need a white Greca"
ROTFL!
Perhaps, should I be privileged to find myself in the eternal city, I'll try that line and see what happens. Hopefully, I'll not be stoned.
papabear - when people post URL texts into a comment instead of doing it properly, using the "a href=" tag, the often extend across a line. The thing to do is to selet a couple of lines and post the text into notepad. That often gets the full URL for you.
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