Pope Leo XIV's fashion choices make waves, and many wonder what they mean

VATICAN CITY (AP) — When Pope Leo XIV stepped out on the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to greet the crowd for the first time after his May 8 election, liturgical fashion aficionados around the globe took note: Gone was the simple white cassock and silver cross favored by Pope Francis. Back was the red satin mozzetta shoulder cape, the burgundy stola with gold embroidery and a gold cross held by a double-stranded silken gold cord.

Over Leo’s first few weeks, the excitement grew among liturgical fashion-conscious Catholics as they noticed new additions to the wardrobe, or rather a return to the old additions of the papal wardrobe: cufflinks, white pants, lace.

After Francis' revolutionary papacy, Vatican watchers are now wondering if Leo's return to the past sartorial look means a return to the past on other things too, including more substantial policy issues. But for tailors at the elite handful of liturgical tailoring shops in Rome, there is hope that Leo's return to the fancier garb of popes past will mean a boon to business if Leo's traditional look has a trickle-down effect from the pope to priests and all those in between.

According to the Rev. John Wauck, professor of church communication at the Pontifical Holy Cross University in Rome, Leo's clothing choices are a “return to form,” and his attire similar to that worn by Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II and other popes going back to the middle ages.

They show “a respect for tradition,” he said.

Such respect for the papal office is important for many conservative Catholics. Many conservatives and traditionalists soured on Francis' informal style and disdain for tradition, which reached its pinnacle with his his crackdown on the old Latin Mass. The old liturgy was celebrated before the modernizing reforms of the 1960s Second Vatican Council; Francis greatly restricted access to the old liturgy, saying it had become a source of division in parishes.

Leo has shown strong familiarity with Latin, and has taken to singing the Sunday noontime prayer in Latin. Some traditionalist Catholics are hoping Leo will take the pro-Latin path even further and reverse Francis to allow greater use of the traditional Latin Mass.

Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology at Villanova University, where Leo went to college, said it's too early to tell if Leo will reverse Francis' reform.

“It remains to be seen if Leo’s more traditional attire and liturgical style means that he will change Francis’ strong decisions limiting the so-called ‘Latin Mass,’" he said.

That said, Faggioli said U.S. conservatives seems particularly happy with Leo’s traditional attire, given Francis’ disdain for the fashion pomp of the papacy.

“In this sense, Francis might have been a parenthesis or an interlude, more than a changer of the tradition in ‘papal style,’” he said in an email.

At his inaugural Mass on May 18, 2025, Pope Leo XIV reached out his arm to sprinkle holy water and revealed a shirt with cufflinks, which Francis had largely avoided. He was also wearing an amitto, and an alb held in place by a cingulum. For the non-experts, the amitto is a lacy linen cloth that goes around the neck, the alb is the white tunic worn under the ceremonial vestment, and the cingulum is a braided rope with tassels that serves as a belt.

If it weren’t for photographers’ long lenses relentlessly trained on the pope’s every gesture, Leo’s switch from Francis’s standard black pants to more traditional white papal trousers would have gone completely unnoticed.

In addition to the clothing changes, Leo has returned to some other traditions of the Vatican that Francis eschewed.

He has shown himself willing to accept the traditional “baciamano” or kissing of his ring. Francis disliked having his ring kissed and often pulled his hand away if someone tried to kiss it.

“I think that what we see with Pope Leo is a willingness to embrace tradition, even if it risks seeming perhaps more formal than Pope Francis,” Wauck said. The idea is that “seeing that tradition as a treasure to be conserved and embraced as opposed to something that makes one feel perhaps a little bit standoffish.”

It remains to be seen whether Leo will move into the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace, which stood empty during the 12-year Francis papacy. Francis shocked the world by choosing to live in a small room at the Santa Marta residence at the Vatican, eating his meals in the common dining room.

For the Rev. Castro Prudencio, this is all much ado about nothing. "For Pope Francis it was simplicity. Always. And Pope Leo has taken up what Pope Benedict had and many others. That is what the church is like,” he said.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

FILE - Newly elected Pope Leo XIV leaves after appearing on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

FILE - Italian tailor Raniero Mancinelli, 87, prepares the white fabric to create suits, in three different sizes, to be taken to the Vatican in the hope that it might be worn by the new pope, at his shop in Rome, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)

FILE - Pope Leo XIV spreads holy water as he celebrates a Mass for the Jubilee of New Religious Associations on Pentecost Day in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, June 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

FILE - Pope Leo XIV celebrates a Mass for the formal inauguration of his pontificate, in St. Peter's Square attended by heads of state, royalty and ordinary faithful, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

FILE - Newly elected Pope Leo XIV appears at the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

Retired professional baseball player Lenny Dykstra faces charges after Pennsylvania State Police said a trooper found drugs and paraphernalia in his possession during a traffic stop on New Year's Day.

Dykstra, 62, was a passenger when the vehicle was pulled over by a trooper with the Blooming Grove patrol unit in Pike County, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east of Scranton, where Dykstra lives.

Police said in a statement that charges will be filed but did not specify what they may be or what drugs were allegedly involved.

Matthew Blit, Dykstra’s lawyer, said in a statement that the vehicle did not belong to Dykstra and he was not accused of being under the influence of a substance at the scene.

“To the extent charges are brought against him, they will be swiftly absolved,” Blit said.

Dykstra's gritty style of play over a long career with the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies earned him the nickname “Nails.” He spent years as a businessman before running into a series of legal woes.

Dykstra served time in a California prison for bankruptcy fraud, sentenced to more than six months for hiding baseball gloves and other items from his playing days. That ran concurrent with a three-year sentence for pleading no contest to grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement. He claimed he owed more than $31 million and had only $50,000 in assets.

In April 2012, Dykstra pleaded no contest to exposing himself to women he met through Craigslist.

In 2019, Dykstra pleaded guilty on behalf of his company, Titan Equity Group, to illegally renting out rooms in a New Jersey house that it owned. He agreed to pay about $3,000 in fines.

That same year a judge dropped drug and terroristic threat charges against Dykstra after an altercation with an Uber driver. Police said they found cocaine, MDMA and marijuana among his belongings. Dykstra's lawyer called that incident “overblown” and said he was innocent.

And in 2020 a New York Supreme Court judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit that Dykstra filed against former Mets teammate Ron Darling over his allegation that Dykstra made racist remarks toward an opponent during the 1986 World Series.

Justice Robert D. Kalish said Dykstra’s reputation “for unsportsmanlike conduct and bigotry” had already been so tarnished that it could not be damaged further.

“Based on the papers submitted on this motion, prior to the publication of the book, Dykstra was infamous for being, among other things, racist, misogynist, and anti-gay, as well as a sexual predator, a drug-abuser, a thief, and an embezzler,” Kalish wrote.

FILE - Former baseball player Lenny Dykstra sits during his sentencing for grand theft auto in Los Angeles, on Dec. 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)