The first time Daniel Allan waved a brand-new white skull cap at Pope Francis, the Pope didn’t stop.

It’s a tradition in Rome — asking the pope to take a white zucchetto (as the skull cap is called), in hopes he’ll give you the one he’s already wearing, or at least put it on top of his head for a short while.

Allan, 24, a pastoral associate in Michigan, first heard about it when he was a junior in high school visiting St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, which has a zucchetto from Pope Benedict XVI.

So when he went on a pilgrimage to Rome earlier this month as part of a 49-person group from his parish, St. Sebastian’s in Byron Center, he put a plan in motion. During free time one day he went to Gammarelli, the tailor of the popes, and bought a white zucchetto for 80 euros.

Popes usually give general audiences in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesdays. On Wednesday, Oct. 23, Unitours tour guide Maddelina Conte ushered everybody out of the hotel by 7 a.m. and into an area of St. Peter’s Square where each of them was near a route the Pope would go by on his way to the platform where he would give his weekly catechesis.

The pastor of St. Sebastian’s, Msgr. William Duncan, who is also vicar general of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, rushed to get near enough to Allan to take video with his iPhone 15.

Pope Francis came by and locked eyes with Allan, but he didn’t stop the popemobile. All seemed lost.

But a man nearby assured Allan that the Pope would come by a second time.

Even then, though, negativity crept in as the popemobile approached again.

“Ah, it’s not happening,” a man’s voice can be heard saying in the 40-second YouTube video.

“Why not?” a young woman responds.

“Santo Padre!” Allan yells out twice, followed by “Papa” five times.

In the video, Pope Francis can be seen giving a Sign-of-the-Cross blessing as the popemobile stops. He then nods as Allan waves the white zucchetto with his right hand. 

A man in a dark suit walking next to the left side of the popemobile takes the zucchetto and hands it to the Pope, who puts it on over the zucchetto he is already wearing and holds it fast on top of it with his right hand for about 1.4 seconds, and then hands it back — to wild cheers from the Michigan pilgrims.

Zucchetto means “little pumpkin” or “half-pumpkin” in Italian, which is what the skull cap looks like; it was originally meant to keep the shaved portion of the top of the head of a cleric (known as “tonsure”) warm.

Bishops have been wearing them since around the 13th century, according to The Catholic Encyclopedia of the early 1900s.

(Not always willingly; St. John XXIII “hated the white skull cap that popes wear, which would not stay on his bald scalp,” according to Eamon Duffy’s 2006 book Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, so he reinvented a different sort of cap for himself based on a design from the Renaissance.)

According to several imprecise sources on the internet, Pope Pius XII began the tradition of exchanging zucchettos with pilgrims, a gesture sometimes replaced by just holding the zucchetto on top of the incumbent zucchetto already resting on the pope’s head.

That’s what Pope Francis did last Wednesday.

Why does it matter?

Allan sees it as a kind of moment of unity with the Vicar of Christ, whom Catholics believe is the successor of St. Peter in governing the Church and proclaiming its teachings.

“To go there and see him and to look into his eyes and to have a zucchetto worn by him, for me, and I hope for the whole parish, is a way to feel connected and to feel one with the Holy Father and with the whole Church,” Allan told the Register on Friday.

As pastoral associate at St. Sebastian’s, Allan oversees adult ministries, including the Rite (Order) of Christian Initiation for Adults, which prepares would-be converts to join the Catholic Church.

Msgr. Duncan described the Pope Francis zucchetto as a tangible way to demonstrate the oneness of the Church to people learning about the faith.

“What a wonderful explanation of what it means to be a universal Church and to explain the role of the Holy Father in our faith,” Msgr. Duncan said.

Allan told the Register he plans to put the zucchetto in a clear case and display it somewhere on the parish grounds where everyone can see it.