Pope Leo XIV’s handcrafted pectoral cross features relics of St. Leo the Great, St. Augustine, St. Monica, St. Thomas of Villanova, Bl. Anselmo Polanco, and Ven. Giuseppe Bartolomeo Menochio.
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) -- The Vatican has released details of Pope Leo XIV's pectoral cross, which includes relics of Pope Leo the Great and St. Augustine.
On May 28, Vatican News revealed the significant behind Pope Leo XIV's pectoral cross, which was gifted to him on the day of his election by the Circolo San Pietro, an association of lay people founded in 1869.
"The Pope joyfully received the pectoral cross enriched with the relics of four bishops particularly dear to him," the Vatican reported.
The cross was designed by Antonino Cottone under the direction of Father Bruno Silvestrini, OSA, Custode del Sacrario Apostolico.
The cross was crafted by hand, using traditional medieval techniques.
Cottone meticulously designed a small cross, adorning it with delicate gilded paper filigrees, known as paperoles, set against a backdrop of red moiré, a "watered silk" fabric with an iridescent sheen resembling wood or marble grain.
He incorporated four tiny paper flowers to encase the relics of four saints. Cottone rolled, shaped, and glued narrow paper strips to form intricate decorative patterns, carefully placing the sacred fragments of "holy bones" within them.
Inside the cross are the relics of Pope St. Leo the Great, St. Monica, the mother of Saint Augustine, as well as four Augustinian bishops: St. Augustine, St. Thomas of Villanova, Venerable Giuseppe Bartolomeo Menochio, and Blessed Anselmo Polanco, a Spanish bishop martyred in the country’s civil war.
Pope Leo the Great is known in the Catholic Church for strengthening the papacy by centralizing Church authority, earning the title "the Great" for his theological and administrative leadership.
He also famously persuaded Attila the Hun to spare Rome in 452. St. Leo the Great also contributed to the Council of Chalcedon in 451, especially regarding the Church's doctrine on Christ’s dual nature, human and divine, and left a lasting legacy through his sermons and letters.
Additionally, the relic of St. Augustine, a doctor of the Church, is particularly special to Pope Leo XIV, who is an Augustinian himself.
During a sermon when he was elected cardinal in 2023, Leo emphasized the importance of St. Augustine.
"When I think of St. Augustine, his vision and understanding of what it means to belong to the Church, one of the first things that springs to mind is what he says about how you cannot say you are a follower of Christ without being part of the Church," he said. "Christ is part of the Church. He is the head." "So people who think they can follow Christ 'in their own way' without being part of the body, are, unfortunately, living a distortion of what is really an authentic experience," Leo explained. "St. Augustine’s teachings touch every part of life, and help us to live in communion.""Unity and communion are essential charisms of the life of the Order and a fundamental part of understanding what the Church is and what it means to be in it," he declared.
