World Youth Day organisers deny Pope has rejected chasuble design
By Ed West
18 April 2008

World Youth Day organisers in Australia have denied reports that Benedict XVI has decided not to wear a chasuble specially designed for this summer's event.

The "earthy red" vestments, dubbed "chic clergy couture" on the World Youth Day website, feature the Southern Cross constellation on the front and an Aborigine "Marjorie's Bird" on the back.

However, The Australian newspaper reported that the Pope, who has always been open about his dislike for modern vestments, would not wear them.

The newspaper quoted Tracey Rowland, author of the recently published Ratzinger's Faith, as saying that vestment symbols had to be "explicitly and unequivocally Christian".

Fr Peter Williams, WYD08 director of liturgy, has described the vestment as "an earthy red colour to reflect Australia's unique landscape", which "feature the Southern Cross on the front, signifying Australia as the Great Southern Land of the Holy Spirit".

But Benedict XVI, who will visit Australia for the first time this summer, is a noted liturgical conservative who opposes applause in church as "completely liturgically wrong", according to Dr Rowland, as well as the use of pop music "as a carrot to get people to go to church".

The vestments are being made in Bergamo, northern Italy, by Solivari, a company specialising in liturgical wear. Seven hundred chasubles, the outer garment, will be produced for cardinals and bishops, and 3,000 stoles - the strip of cloth worn around the neck - for priests and deacons.

WYD spokesman Jim Hanna said he had not heard of any difficulties concerning the chasubles. "I have seen no evidence of controversy brewing about the liturgy," he said, adding that he was confident that the event would achieve the expected numbers.

"We are in regular contact with the bishops' conferences in most of the main countries - we check the numbers they give us all the time," he said. "What they're telling us at the moment is that the number of 125,000 is about right."