Pope Francis’ watch auctioned off and proceeds set a world record

President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, announced new plans to increase access to surgical abortion, chemical abortion, and contraceptives, with the move coming on the 51st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s now-defunct Ro… […]

A Vatican flag, with the incorrect design likely drawn from Wikipedia, and the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. / Bohumil Petrik/ACI

St. Louis, Mo., Apr 8, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

The flag of Vatican City, with its distinctive yellow and white, is instantly recognizable to many Catholics. Likely far fewer people, though, have scrutinized the papal coat of arms on the right-hand side, instead taking the intricate design — which includes famous crossed keys — for granted. 

As it turns out, there’s a good chance that the coats of arms on many of the Vatican flags you’ve seen out in the world are rendered incorrectly. And it took until 2023 for the internet to start taking notice. 

Imagine you wanted to print your own version of the Vatican flag. Where would you go to find a high-quality picture of one? If you’re like most internet users, your first stop would probably not be the Vatican’s official (but admittedly outdated) vatican.va website. You’re probably going to pull up Wikipedia, one of the world’s most visited websites and an endless storehouse of free image content. Flagmakers the world over appear to have done so over the years.

Imagine many people’s surprise, then, to discover that the image of the “Flag of Vatican City” displayed on Wikipedia has been wrong several times over the years, most recently from 2017 to 2022. (It was also wrong from 2006–2007.)

What is “wrong” about these flags, you might ask? It’s a small detail in the grand scheme of things but easy to spot once you know about it. The erroneous Wikipedia file includes a red disk at the bottom of the papal tiara as well as a different shade of yellow on portions of the coat of arms.

The anonymous Wikipedia editor who changed the look of the flag in 2017 wrote that he or she did so for “color correction” purposes, noting that the Vatican’s coat of arms includes the red at the bottom of the tiara. The only problem? The Vatican’s official flag design renders the coat of arms differently, with the circular bottom of the tiara in white. 

The image was reverted to the correct one in 2022, but the damage was done. A casual internet search will turn up dozens of Vatican flags for sale that clearly used the incorrect image downloaded from Wikipedia. The incorrect flag has even made its way into emojis. (This whole situation gained attention last month after a Reddit user made a post about it.)

Father William Becker, pastor at St. Columbanus Parish in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, read the Reddit post with interest and amusement. Becker, a self-described “flag guy,” has studied the Vatican flag for years and even wrote an entire book about it. He has fond memories of raising the yellow and white colors over his alma mater, the North American College in Rome. 

One might imagine that the precise design specifications of the Vatican flag would be laid out for anyone to access, like they are for the flag of the United States, for example. But they aren’t. The best the Vatican provides is a web page with a verbal description and history of the flag, along with a low-resolution image showing a square version. 

Becker told CNA that the saga of the Vatican flag on Wikipedia demonstrates a need for the Vatican to step in and clarify exactly what its flag should look like, especially considering the fact that Catholic churches all over the world display the Vatican flag. 

It was precisely this lack of clarity on the official design of the Vatican flag that led Becker to create a website detailing, as best as he could, the correct design for the flag. 

“Cultural communities in general have turned to flags in a stunning way,” Becker commented, citing in part a proliferation of cheaply made, mass-produced flags. And, anecdotally, there seems to be an ever-increasing interest in the Vatican flag as a way for Catholics to claim an identity, whether by flying a flag at home, waving it at a papal event, or by putting one in their social media profile picture. 

Perhaps surprisingly, the Vatican flag is less than 100 years old, as is Vatican City itself. For more than a millennium before 1870, the pope ruled over the Papal States, large regions mainly within present-day Italy. After the Vatican lost control of the Papal States, it found itself a tiny island surrounded by an acrimonious Italy. It took nearly 60 years until the ratification of the Lateran Accords of 1929 ushered in harmony between the Vatican and Italy, and the creation of the world’s smallest sovereign country. 

In the days of the Papal States, many different flags were used, but the yellow and white color scheme was a common feature. Becker said the modern design was first used by the merchant fleet in the Papal States from 1825 to 1870. In 1929, that design was chosen as the new flag of Vatican City, the sovereign country. 

“It took a while in 1929 to get some flags made. The techniques of mass production weren’t available yet, and so it would have been a matter of sewing up some flags and fitting out buildings with flag staffs,” Becker noted, saying that during this time and for years afterward there was quite a bit of variation between the Vatican flags people flew, perhaps even more so than today. 

“That’s kind of common with other countries too, especially those that don’t really take pains to standardize their design. [Nowadays] a flagmaker is likely to go to a source like Wikipedia, and it may vary in its accuracy,” Becker told CNA. 

The same flag chosen in 1929 was reconfirmed in a revised Vatican constitution, issued by Pope John Paul II in 2000. The original Vatican flag was actually square, as indeed the official version is today. Since roughly the 1960s, though, buildings began to fly oblong state flags that followed Italy’s flag proportions, probably because most Vatican flags at the time were mass-produced there. 

The flag has special significance beyond the walls of Vatican City as a marker for the Vatican’s extraterritorial properties, of which there are more than a dozen. These properties, which include major basilicas such as St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. Mary Major, are marked as the Vatican’s through their flying of the papal flag. 

Becker said he hopes his website will serve as a helpful resource for anyone looking for the exact Vatican flag design, at least until the Vatican issues some kind of clarification on what exactly the flag should look like. 

“The papal flag is interesting because on the one hand, the Vatican is such a small state, but the papal flag is seen all over the world. Anywhere there’s a Catholic church, you might be likely to run into a papal flag,” he said. 

“It would be nice if somebody at the Holy See could, through their website or wherever, make some design specifications more available … design specifications that manufacturers could rely on a bit more.”

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Members of ACLI (Italian Christian Workers’ Associations) hold a sign with the word “peace” in Italian, in St. Peter’s Square on June 1, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jun 1, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Being peacemakers in the style of Jesus Christ, while necessary and valuable, can also be risky, Pope Francis said on Saturday, as multiple conflicts continue to rage around the world.

Speaking to members of Italian Christian Workers’ Associations (ACLI) at the Vatican on June 1, the pontiff said, “interceding for peace is something that goes far beyond mere political compromise because it requires putting oneself on the line and taking a risk.”

“Our world, we know, is marked by conflict and division, and your witness as peacemakers, as intercessors for peace, is as necessary and valuable as ever,” he underlined.

Pope Francis’ remarks about a world “bloodied by many wars” came as Israel and Hamas consider proposals for an exchange of hostages and a ceasefire.

“This is truly a decisive moment,” U.S. President Joe Biden said at the White House on Friday, as he unveiled Israel’s three-phase proposal for ending the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not end the war in Gaza until its aims have been achieved.

The Israeli military also confirmed Friday it is carrying out an operation in the center of the southern Gazan city of Rafah, which the United Nations said has been reduced to “apocalyptic conditions.”

Last month, Russia began a surprise offensive on Ukraine’s northern border, in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. The assault has forced Ukraine to move already thinly spread resources away from other front lines as it attempts to prevent Russia’s capture of Kharkiv city, Ukraine’s second largest.

In Sudan, millions of people are fleeing the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces as civil war continues to bring devastation over one year later.

The UN has called the conflict “a humanitarian nightmare,” as the country experiences a massive hunger crisis and other human rights atrocities, with the dead numbering around 15,000.

In his speech June 1, Pope Francis recalled the words of the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, spoken at a prayer vigil for peace on Jan. 29, 1991.

The cardinal “laid emphasis on the ability to ‘intercede,’ that is, to situate oneself between the contending parties, putting a hand on the shoulder of both and accepting the risk that this entails,” the pope said.

The person who builds peace is the one, he continued, “who knows how to take a clear position, but at the same time strives to build bridges, to listen, and to understand the different parties involved, promoting dialogue and reconciliation.”

Francis also emphasized that the model par excellence of a peacemaker is Jesus Christ. “Where can we find inspiration and strength to welcome everyone if not in the life of Jesus?” he said.

It is good to take time for prayer at association meetings, he told the group, but living out the Christian life goes further.

“Assuming a Christian style means growing in familiarity with the Lord and in the spirit of the Gospel,” the pope said, “so that it may permeate everything we do and our action have the style of Christ and make him present in the world.”

“In the face of cultural visions that threaten to nullify the beauty of human dignity and tear society apart, I invite you to cultivate ‘a new dream of fraternity and social friendship that is not limited to words,’” he emphasized, quoting his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti.

Pope Francis also praised the association for promoting democracy.

A democratic society, he said, is one “in which there really is a place for everyone, in factual reality and not just in declarations and on paper.”

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