When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope, some conservative Catholics happily expected him to scrap the modern papal inauguration - in which cardinals kiss and hang a piece of cloth called a pallium around the pope's neck - and bring back the old papal coronation, with that glorious, glittering papal tiara.
But not only did Pope Benedict keep the inauguration and not wear the tiara, he even removed it from his papal coat of arms, so becoming the first pope for a thousand years to have a coat of arms without a triple tiara.
So what is a triple tiara, I hear all you guitar-playing, Kumbaya-singing modern Catholics, ask. A triple tiara is a papal crown. It isn't like an ordinary crown, but shaped rather like a bees' nest with three tiers. There are more than 20 such tiaras at the Vatican, and they are incredibly beautiful. Who could blame conservative Catholics for wanting their pope to wear a spectacular jewel-laden crown rather than that dreary pallium?
If Benedict had opted to wear a tiara, it probably would have been the 1877 Palatine Tiara given to Pope Pius IX. With a thin layer of gold over solid silver, it has 35 rubies, 13 emeralds, 11 sapphires, 18 emeralds, 28 Balas rubies, and 11 brilliants on top.
Alternatively, Pope Benedict could have picked the solid gold tiara that Leo XIII got in 1903, Or Paul VI's weird, solid silver, bullet-shaped one, that is so 1960s in style. Then there is the the 1800 papier maché one made while the pope was in exile and all the historic tiaras had been stolen by Napoleon's soldiers and smashed. He could have worn the one given by Queen Isabella of Spain in 1855, or of the one given by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany in 1887. Or even Pope John XXIII's lightweight model made in 1959.
Papal tiaras haven't been worn since Pope Paul VI, in a "gesture of humility", stopped wearing his in 1963. Actually, given that his tiara weighed 10 lbs (that's the weight of five bags of sugar on your head), who could blame him for not wanting to wear it again? But contrary to rumour, Paul didn't abolish the tiara. He actually explicitly required in Romano Pontifici Eligendo, his 1975 Apostolic Constitution, that his successor be crowned. But John Paul I disregarded him. And while not saying there was anything wrong with wearing a papal tiara, John Paul II decided not to either, saying it was "not the time". (He was rather embarrassed later to find out that under Pope Paul's rules, which he was still supposed to follow, wearing the tiara was obligatory.)
As for the three levels of the tiara, the Holy See says they stand for the "threefold authority of the Supreme Pontiff: Universal Pastor, Universal Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Temporal Power". But the Vatican (yes, I too was surprised to find the Holy See and the Vatican are different) insists they mean: "Father of princes and kings, Ruler of the world, Vicar of our Saviour Jesus Christ". Others say they signify "the threefold office of Christ: Priest, Prophet and King", while John Paul II said they represented the Pope as "teacher, lawmaker and judge".
L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, says they mean "order, jurisdiction and magisterium". In reality, I suspect, no one knows for certain, so theories abound.
Among the weirder ones is that common among Seventh-day Adventists, who claim that one of the tiaras bears the words "Vicarius Filii Dei" ("Vicar of the Son of God", for those of you who have forgotten your Latin). Bad enough for the Pope to make such a claim they say; but even worse, when those letters in the legend that form Roman numerals are added together, the total is. . .666 - the number of the Beast in the Book of Revelations. involves the claim that the words "Vicarius Filii Dei exist on the side of one of the tiaras. Some fundamentalist Protestant sects regard this as confirmation that the Pope, as head of the Roman Catholic Church, is the Antichrist. Such conspiracy theorists are unlikely to impressed by the fact that no such inscription exists on any of the papal tiaras.
If you ever visit the Vatican, be sure to view the tiaras - and then like me you'll wonder why those works of art are locked away in museums rather than used. The only time they leave the museum these days is when they are sent abroad on the "Legacy of the Popes" tour currently drawing crowds in the US. So, a request to His Holiness: if you aren't going to wear the things, will you please send the tiaras over to Ireland some day, so that those of us too young to remember papal coronations can get to see them? Perhaps Pope Benedict's friend Cardinal Connell, could have a word with him.
One thing is certain: if they do come, I'll be the first in the queue to see them.