I got a text message from a friend of mine the other day. He posited that it didn't make sense for a guy like the pope who takes a vow of poverty to wear Prada shoes. You might have heard that Pope Benedict XVI sports bright red kicks from the chic shoemaker Prada, whereas his predecessor, Pope John Paul II often wore tired old brown loafers. You've probably heard it by now, that Papa Benny is a bit of a shoe dandy and has expensive taste in footwear despite his humble office. Two notes: (a) The pope doesn't take vows of poverty, (b) Those aren't Prada.

To explain:
(a) It's a common misconception that priests take vows of poverty. In fact, most priests do not take that vow--but the vocabulary makes it confusing. All priests and religious (nuns, monks, friars) take a general public vow called a "religious vow" that says they dedicate their life to follow a calling by God to a type of religious living. That's a basic agreement to be a priest or religious (read "religious" as a noun, not an adjective). Beyond that, some priests and religious join organizations that ask other commitments, generally called "professed vows" (see how the vocab is nebulous?) that are the big three that everyone knows: Poverty, Chastity, Obedience.

Poverty is not actually a promise to be poor, but to have no goods greater than the community, and that all goods should benefit the community; some of the old Benedictine Abbeys could actually be quite rich if you measured the value of their land, buildings and religious stuff on a balance sheet--but all the monks wear plain black robes and don't get HDTV. But if someone donates a Lexus to the monastery, you might see some monks in a pretty nice car.

Chastity does not mean the same thing as Celibate, but in the 21st Century, we conflate the two words. Celibacy is a charge to all Catholic priests and religious, which means they promise to lead a sexless life. Chastity is a virtue of sexual moderation; married people are supposed to be chaste in relation to their spouses, which at its most basic understanding, means not sleeping around. I don't really understand the difference in chastity versus celibacy in priests, and if they're leading celibate lives, why ask for chastity on top of it? It seems redundant. But in truth, we're ALL responsible for living chaste lives--as single people, married people or religious people.

Obedience is an agreement to respect the bishop, abbot, abbess or whomever leads whatever abbey, friary, convent or organization that the person joins.

The three professed vows are commonly known, but not universal to all priests or religious. For example, Benedictine Monks (i.e. Dom Perignon) are part of a very old organization--the "Rule of Saint Benedict" is from the 6th Century. They make pledges of Obedience (to the Abbot who heads the Abbey), Stability (committed to one particular Abbey, there are different Benedictine communities all over the world) and "Conversion of Manners" (which included forgoing private property and living celibate chastity). Franciscans (i.e. Friar Tuck) and Dominicans (i.e. Saint Thomas Aquinas) are mobile kinds of groups that could do a lot of traveling for their ministries, so they dropped the Stability vow and profess the regular poverty, chastity and obedience.

But you regular run-of-the-mill priest doesn't take the professed vows. In fact, any priest at any church might actually be kind of rich--at least, it's his right to be so. His income from the parish/diocese probably doesn't amount to much, but the priests could come from rich families, have made good investment decisions, or have some other specialty. Good examples might be if they are authors, artists, lecturers, musicians, etc. Of course, most priests aren't rolling in dough, in fact I'd wager that they probably don't earn much more than what they need to live--as most of the time the congregations they serve are cash-strapped already.

As pope, Pope Benedict is basically a privately elected king of a rich monarchy. In fact popes used to even wear tiaras (not the Miss America kind, mind you) when they were acting as head of state or in any other official capacity (not during Mass); it was a pretty common practice until the Second Vatican Council when Pope Paul VI famously "renounced Human Glory" and laid down the tiara as a sign of humility. I'd probably assert that this was the part of the bigger "dumbing down" of Catholicism of Vatican 2, but that's all Church politics and not really part of this question. But the pope could be considered as pretty rich if you consider him as head of a monarchy. I don't think he draws a salary (or know what it would be used for?), but let's say that he lives a pretty lavish life for a clergyman. There are a number of papal tiaras, and if this pope-- or any future pope-- wanted to pick one up and wear it around, it's his total right to do so. There's even one on display in the United States: Paul VI donated his theretofore unused tiara to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in our nation's capital.

(b) A lot of the "fashion" choices that this pope makes are not really about fashion, per se, as much as they are about Catholicity. Pope Benedict's big thing is to see and teach about a thread of continuity between the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the Nineteen Hundred Years before 1962. When Paul VI laid down the tiara, a lot of the truly ancient practices of the Church came to a staggering close. The music changed. The architecture changed. The Mass changed. The way people thought about other Catholics changed. The way people thought about the Church changed. The way people thought about God changed. It was a pretty striking departure from the traditions of the Church that will take GENERATIONS to sort out. If this sounds like pithy exaggeration, I promise it's not. It's really like there is 2 Churches, the pre and post V2 Catholic Churches. Benedict's big thing is to show that the aesthetic and the spirit and the essence of the Church didn't have to be thrown away wholesale like the 60's and 70's would have you believe, so he's digging out of the Vatican closets to bring out some of the old clothes, music, prayers and practices that were otherwise forgotten--in a hope to rejuvenate the way Catholics think, pray, worship and believe.

A good example is the "camauro" hat that you'll see this pope wear in winter. We'd call it a "Santa Hat", but it was a pretty common thing for popes to wear since sometime around 1100 A.D. right up until Pope John XXIII died in 1963. The pope's camauro is not going to make someone a better Catholic, but it's one small part of rebuilding a Catholic Identity. Our common image of a pope is just an old dude in a white suit. Likewise for the red shoes--they're an old and longstanding part of how popes dress--but people my age haven't ever seen it because popes stopped dressing like popes in the 60's.

Pope Benedict actually had the reputation for a stodgy old curmudgeon before being elected pontiff. He is very quiet and shy, a soft-spoken college professor who cares more about playing Mozart on the piano with his brother than he would about appearing with celebrities (like John Paul II was famous for doing). So digging out old vestments from the papal attic is not really a part of trying to garner attention as much as it is about reconnecting to the historical aspects of Catholicism.

So those are real, honest-to-goodness red pope shoes from a real cobbler in the mountainous Piedmont region of Northern Italy , not some fashionista accessory from 5th Avenue.

To wit: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4218136.ece:

The Pope wears Prada? That's cobblers, says the Vatican The Times Online Richard Owen June 26, 2008

The Devil may wear Prada -- but the Pope does not, according to the Vatican.

The pontiff has been hailed as a "style icon" since his election just over three years ago and speculation has been rife that he enjoys designer clothes. Attention has focused not only on his often elaborate headgear and fashionable sunglasses but also on his dainty red shoes, or moccasins, widely assumed to be made by Prada.

However L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, categorically denied reports today that the shoes were a Prada product, saying this was "of course false".

According to Vatican sources the Pope's shoes are made by a cobbler from Novara called Adriano Stefanelli, who makes them from calf or kid for the winter and nappa leather for the summer. Papal shoe repairs are carried out by Antonio Arellano, a Peruvian shoemaker in the Borgo, the medieval quarter next to St Peter's. The article, on "Ratzinger's Liturgical Vestments", was written by Juan Manuel de Prada, the noted Spanish writer and author of The Tempest, who is not related to the fashion company. De Prada said that the image of the German-born Pope as concerned with "frivolity" was at odds with the truth, which was that he was a "simple and sober" man. Suggestions to the contrary were "stupid and banal".

On the day of Benedict's election as pontiff "the whole world" had seen the sleeves of a "modest black sweater" peeping out from beneath the cuffs of his papal robes, De Prada said. It was true that Pope Benedict paid a great deal of attention to his clothing, but only because of its liturgical significance.

"The Pope is not dressed by Prada but by Christ," he said. Rome residents recall that as a cardinal Benedict was austere rather than flamboyant, and used to cross St Peter's Square from his office to his flat wearing a black beret and black overcoat and carrying a battered leather briefcase.

De Prada said that an article in Esquire magazine describing Benedict as among the world figures who were the "epitome of elegance" had been greeted with "amused perplexity". The Pope had revived traditional papal headgear, from the fur-trimmed red medieval caumaro he wears at Christmas to the wide-brimmed red saturno, or "Saturn hat" he has been wearing in the current heat wave in Rome. These had been worn by previous Popes, as had the Renaissance fur-trimmed velvet cape or mozzetta.

Vatican watchers nonetheless noted that these hats and outfits have not been used since the days of Pope John XXIII, who died in 1963. Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, was usually seen in the same pair of well-worn brown shoes, and invariably wore simple outfits such as a basic white cassock and white gold-trimmed sash, although in winter he tended to don a crimson wool cloak trimmed with gold braid.

Pope Benedict has been seen wearing Serengeti sunglasses, and is also known to have been given Geox loafers by Mario Moretti Polegato, the Geox CEO, who is a friend of Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the former papal spokesman. When he retreats to the mountains of northern Italy in the summer he wears a jaunty white baseball cap.

After his election the Vatican denied reports that Pope Benedict was abandoning the Rome ecclesiastical tailors Gammarelli, who have been making papal cassocks since 1792, for a rival firm, Maninelli, which supplied his robes when he was a cardinal. "There are no cassock wars," a spokesman said.

So it's not about designer shoes.

Though I'm sure the Pontiff would like to visit Kansas anyway, why does the pope really wear red shoes?

To keep his socks clean!

Next week: why do firemen wear red suspenders?