By Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News
(OSV News) — While Catholics have been accustomed to the famed silver papal staff featuring the suffering of Christ crucified and used by the pontiffs for decades, a new staff, or crosier, used by Pope Leo XIV, emphasized the victory of the risen Christ over death.
A statement published Jan. 8 by the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff noted that the staff used by Pope Leo at the Jan. 6 Mass for the feast of the Epiphany, which also marked the formal closing of the Holy Year, is nevertheless “in continuity with those used by his predecessors.”
The meaning of the staff, known in Latin as the “ferula pontificalis,” unites “the mission of proclaiming the mystery of love expressed by Christ on the cross with his glorious manifestation in the resurrection.”
“The Paschal mystery, the gravitational center of the apostolic proclamation, thus becomes a source of hope for humanity. Death no longer holds power over man because Christ has redeemed what he assumed,” the office said in the statement.
The most well-known papal cross, used by pontiffs since St. Paul VI and designed by Italian sculptor Lello Scorzelli, was silver and featured a thin, emaciated Christ crucified on a curved cross.
The papal liturgies office said that staff became “a defining image of the modern papacy, symbolizing carrying the weight of the world’s suffering.”
While the crucifix on Pope Leo’s new staff is similar to Scorzelli’s design, the notable difference is that it depicts Christ with his arms outstretched, not crucified, but displaying the wounds of crucifixion as he ascends to heaven.
The design, the statement said, suggested that while signs of Christ’s suffering remained, “it presents the wounds of the cross as luminous signs of victory that, while not erasing human pain, transfigure it into the dawn of divine life.”
The office noted that while the staff used by bishops highlights their role as shepherds, the use of a staff by the Roman pontiffs, which has been since the Second Vatican Council, served as a visual testament “to the Petrine ministry of confirming the brethren in the Paschal faith.”
“It is significant that Pope Leo used this new staff for the first time at the closing of the Holy Door ending the ‘Jubilee of Hope,'” the office said. “It symbolizes that there is no foundation other than in the crucified and risen Christ, who, in his ascension to the right hand of the Father while clothed in glorified humanity, brought the parable of the Incarnation to completion.”
Junno Arocho Esteves is an international correspondent for OSV News. Follow him on X @jae_journalist.
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