In the classification of contemporary colors, which refers to various stairs, recognized internationally, The purple is a dark red color, darker than that dressed currently by the cardinals, to which, instead, ecclesiastical tailors refer as “cardinal red” or “Ponsò”, from the eighteenth -century French “panceau”, and which indicates a poppy red colorwhich He does not prevent the cardinals and purple still “purple”, for synecdoche, a rhetorical figure indicating the part for everything, their guise.
In the religious dress the cardinal red stands out from the “Padazzo”, the purple that characterizes the bishops instead. When it happens that on the subject of purple, a misunderstanding between the two colors is created in the common, it generally happens for a misunderstanding linked to the translation of the English “Purple”, the same Latin purple root, which instead indicates a purple color. Historically, purple is the most precious color of antiquity, which in the first millenniums. C. was the basis of the commercial empire of the Phoenicians.
From the Phoenicians, the most precious color in the ancient world, a sign of royalty
A story, of which there is a trace in the writings of Teopompo, Greek historian of the 4th century BC. C., and in the Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder, who Tommaso Gnoli, in the voice Treccani Dedicated to the Phoenicians and intended for boys, it summarizes quickly but effectively like this: “The Phoenician term derives from the Greek Phòiniks which means” red “. This denomination, which we already find in Homer, is particularly significant as they are strongly linked to the most precious and important goods that the Phoenicians exported to Greece and throughout the Mediterranean: the purple, a precious pigment that was extracted from molluscs of the Murex genre, housed in shells that lived in the sea overlooking the coasts of Lebanon and that the Phoenicians had learned very soon to use on an industrial scale dye the fabrics. The mollusk was squeezed and mixed with salt, then exposed to the sun for three days. The extracted juice was boiled very slowly in large lead containers until the liquid had evaporated halfway. Only at this point could the clothes that had to be colored. The result were different and brilliant colors, from pale pink to the most intense purple, depending on the material and immersion time. The process of extraction of this long and complex substance meant that the fabrics treated with purple were very expensive, and their use was long associated with the idea of royalty».
Francesco, at the time of the election, comes out without red mozzette.
Roman world, Christian world, the evangelical reference
Not by chance in the Gospels of the Passion is “of purple” (Jn 19:2) or “scarlet” (Mt. 27.28) the cloak thrown on the shoulders of Jesus as a sign of ridicule and allusion to its misunderstood earthly regality. “The purple color in antiquity represented royalty,” writes Antonello Battaglia in the essay The dress of the soul. Materials and symbols of religious robesNotebooks of the doctorate in history of Europe, 2015. “During the period of Republican Rome – in which the aversion to the royal institution was notoriously widespread – the cloak of this color was granted to leaders only on the day” in which a victorious leader passed under the arch of triumph, “and was forbidden to all other citizens. The senators wore the white lacticlavio with a wide purple strip, while the knights was allowed a thinner strip. The first to usually wear the purple was Gaius Julius Caesar as Dictator Perpetuus and in the imperial age the color, a symbol of power, spread widely among the Augustus and their Caesars. Even in several steps of the Old Testament, the powerful and the rich appear dressed in purple and bisso ».
But the dress of the cardinals preserves its scarlet color not as an allusion to the prestige of the “charge” as one might think by postponing the time of the temporal power of the Church or to the customs of the ancients, but above all as a reference to the blood and martyrdom of Christ.
The meaning of the cardinal’s dress in the words of the popes: up to martyrdom
“Dear brothers,” he remembered Benedict XVI On the occasion of the Consistory for the creation of new cardinals of 24 November 2007, «By joining the College of Cardinals, the Lord asks you and entrusts you with the service of love: love for God, love for his church, love for brothers with a maximum and unconditional dedication, Usque ad sanguinis effusionem, (up to the bloodshed, ed.), That is, up to martyrdom, as stated in the formula for the imposition of the cap and as the red color of the clothes you wear “shows”.
Words not too different from those pronounced by John Paul II in a similar circumstance on November 26, 1994. “It is a demanding service, to be provided with the utmost dedication” Usque ad effusionem sanguinis “, as the formula for the imposition of the cap says and as it shows well the red color connected with cardinal dignity”.
While Francesco on several occasion has emphasized the meaning of the purple as a service, warning against the temptation to read the prestige: “Dear brothers, we all love Jesus, we all want to follow him, but we must always be vigilant to stay on his way”, he said in the homily for the 2020 public fertilizer, “because with his feet, with the body we can be with him, but our heart can be far away, and take us off the road. We think of many genres of corruption in priestly life. Thus, for example, the purple red of the cardinal’s dress, which is the color of the blood, can become, for the mongano spirit, that of an eminent distinction. And you will no longer be the shepherd near the people, you will feel that he is only “eminentity”. When you feel this, you will be off the road».
Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe asks to keep the Dominican white dress.
Francesco’s warning in the letters to the future cardinals
The same concept returned to the letters that Francesco sent each of the new cardinals every time in view of the ceremony: “The cardinalate”, he wrote on January 12, 2014 on the occasion of his first consistory, “does not mean a promotion, nor an honor, nor a decoration; It is simply a service that demands to expand the gaze and broaden the heart. (…). Therefore I ask you, please, to receive this designation with a simple and humble heart. And, although you have to do it with Gaudio and joy, makes sure that this feeling is far from any expression of worldliness, from any celebration extraneous to the evangelical spirit of austerity, sobriety and poverty ».
Even more direct would have been the following year: «Keeping in humility in the service is not easy when considering the cardinal as a prize, as culmination of a career, a dignity of power or superior distinction. Hence your daily commitment to keep these considerations away, and above all to remember that being cardinal means incardinating in the diocese of Rome to testify to the resurrection of the Lord and give it totally, up to the blood if necessary. Many will rejoice in your new vocation and, like good Christians, they will celebrate (because it is precisely the Christian to rejoice and know how to celebrate). Accept it with humility. Only make sure that, in these celebrations, the spirit of worldliness does not insinuate themselves that stuns more than fasting grappa, disorientates and separates from the cross of Christ “.
And lastly in October 2024, he wrote: “Dear brother, I encourage you to ensure that your cardinlate inads those three attitudes with which an Argentine poet (Francisco Luis Bernárdez) described San Giovanni della Croce, but who also assert themselves to us:” high eyes, joined hands, bare feet “. (…) Thanking you for the generosity, please for you so that the title of “servant” (deacon) increasingly clouded that of “eminence” ». Words line with the Pope’s experience who chose to be called Francesco and who leaving Pope from the conclave refused the red mozzette and for the last trip he asked for the black and consumed shoes of his daily life.
Because some cardinals dress other colors
In everyday life the cardinals dress the black tale profiled red with red sugar and red band. It can happen, as we have seen In the official photos of papal travel, for example next to Francesco in Myanmar, to see Cardinals in white darkened red profile: it is an option expected for high prelates that live in the mission land or serve in areas with very hot climates.
In the Consistory, in the liturgical celebrations in which they assist without officiating, the cardinals wonders the choral dress, composed: of scarlet darkening; Scarlet band; from the spool (sort of sopravete in half a leg) white with lace, red mozzette; From the pectoral cross, Zucchetto and Berretta Scarlatti.
The choice of Cardinal Monaci
It has also recently happened that some new cardinals asked the Pope to present themselves to the Contestory to receive the cardinal cap without the planned choral dress, it was belonging to religious orders who asked for permission to keep the guise of their order: it was the case of the Franciscan Patrick O’MalleyRed Zucchero and Saio Marrone dei Franciscani, in 2006; father Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher of the Pontifical House, who in 2020 received the red cap, wearing the Franciscan dress and asked for the pantry from the appointment of Bishop explaining: “I want to die with the habit”. Similarly to the last Construction in December 2024 they received it with the white guise of the Dominican order Jean-Paul Vesco, metropolitan of Algiers, and Timothy Radcliffe, English theologian, preacher, That at the end of the ceremony he explained to Vatican News: «The white dress? It was an idea of the Pope, he suggested that I keep him because I am a brother (Dominican editor’s note) and I have to stay a brother forever ».
These choices that have seemed exotic to some of some ancient roots, among the cardinals belonging to monastic orders. Even the white guise of the Pope, who has entered the tradition for centuries, has roots in the choice of preserving the dress of the Dominican order by Michele Ghislieri, aka Antonio, elected Pope in 1566 with the name of Pio V. Among the cardinals of the last Construction, in particular stood out the Koukoulion, the headdress and the role of Mykola Bychok metropolitan archbishop of Melbourne, to which the clothes bring the signs, with his 45 years the youngest to enter the conclave.
To the funeral of the Pope and in conclave
The cardinals go in conclave with the choral dress, the guise, complete with sugar and cap without a bow, which use in the liturgical ceremonies in which they are not celebrating. Even on the occasion of the Pope’s funeral, the cardinals do not dress viola, as normally at the funeral, even if they celebrate as we have seen in the last greeting to Pope Francis, ceremony officiated by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, but maintain the red guise that alludes to the blood of the sacrifice of Christ, of which the Pope is vicar.
