Pope Francis has gifted a Filipino boy with his papal cap or zucchetto after the 8-year-old asked to simply touch it during a visit last month in Rome.
Simon Caalaman was with dozens of other children to see the pope on the 300th death anniversary of Saint John La Salle in Rome and managed to chat up the Roman Catholic leader, GMA News TV reported in its ‘Balitanghali’ program Friday.
Caalaman had seen other children touch the Pope’s holy cap and asked if he could do the same. But instead of merely letting the boy touch it, the prelate removed his zucchetto and put it on the Filipino’s head.
It was “an answered prayer,” Caalaman said, to be able to see let alone strike a conversation with the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Pictures online also revealed the Filipino being lifted up while wearing the zucchetto by another man, displaying him to the crowd present.
Prelates often give away their skullcaps to the faithful. The practice, which was started in the modern era by Pope Pius XII, involves giving the zucchetto to the faithful, as a keepsake, if presented with a new one as a gift. Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis have continued the custom.