As cardinals gather in Rome for the start next week of the conclave, where they will vote for the successor to Pope Francis, two longtime papal tailors are also pondering the transition.
There are no clear frontrunners for pontiffs — unsurprisingly, given the secretive nature of a process that is supposed to be more about inspiration from the Holy Spirit than politicking.
And the tailors said they haven't received orders yet to make different-sized cassocks.
Raniero Mancinelli, who's been working on papal vestments since the early 1960s, said he's prepped three robes — sizes small, medium and large — to donate to the Vatican anyway.
He recalled that the very quality of the fabric depends on a pope's preference.
“Francis preferred things that were much simpler and practical,” Mancinelli said inside his shop, just down the street from one of the Vatican’s main entrance gates. “Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) liked slightly more choice fabrics.”
Lorenzo Gammarelli, the sixth-generation owner of an ecclesiastical tailor shop in downtown Rome, recalled the family lore that when John XXII was elected, the cassock was too small.
“So they had to intervene in the background, use pins to take it out so he could appear on the balcony,” Gammarelli said.
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