It is no wonder that Pope Leo XIV wore a simple silver cross when he prayed at the tomb of Pope Francis. At the time, few noticed anything unusual. Fewer still realized that the new pontiff was quietly revealing something essential about himself.

When Leo XIV first appeared in Rome after his election, his appearance struck many as almost deliberately unremarkable. A plain white cassock. Black shoes. A modest silver pectoral cross. Some observers even mistook him for Pope Francis at a distance, assuming it was the late pontiff’s familiar silhouette returning once more to St. Peter’s.

That resemblance was not accidental.

Not all popes have dressed this way. Pope Benedict XVI famously wore red leather loafers—often described as fashionable, sometimes misunderstood as extravagant, but deeply rooted in papal tradition. For centuries, such symbols marked continuity with the historic dignity of the office.

Pope Francis was the first to break decisively with that custom. Shortly after his election, he set aside the traditional red shoes in favor of plain black ones, reportedly made by an elderly shoemaker in Argentina and costing no more than ten dollars. The gesture was never announced, never explained. It simply spoke for itself.

Pope Leo XIV has clearly chosen to walk in that same direction.

By wearing black shoes and a silver cross rather than gold, Leo signaled from the outset that he did not intend to reassert papal splendor through external symbols. Instead, he embraced a visual language of humility, continuity, and restraint—one that echoes Francis’s pastoral style without imitating it theatrically.

Those who know him well say this simplicity did not begin with the papacy.

According to his brother, John Prevost, Leo has worn the same pair of glasses for many years. Even after becoming pope, he saw no reason to replace them. When one lens broke, he simply had it repaired rather than buying a new pair. There was no concern for appearances, no sense that his new role required a new image.

That detail, small as it is, reveals something fundamental.

For Leo XIV, simplicity is not a strategy. It is a habit.

The silver cross he wore at Francis’s tomb carried the same meaning. Gold has long symbolized authority, permanence, and glory. Silver, by contrast, suggests service—something precious, but not ostentatious. It was a quiet acknowledgment that the papacy he has inherited is not one of personal grandeur, but of continuity with a vision that places humility at the center.

In this sense, Leo XIV’s choices are not about rejecting tradition, nor about staging gestures for effect. They reflect a conviction that authority in the Church is most credible when it is not loudly displayed.

Clothing, after all, is a language. And Pope Leo XIV appears to be speaking it fluently—without raising his voice.

At Francis’s tomb, in black shoes and with a silver cross resting against his chest, the message was unmistakable: the path forward would not be marked by spectacle, but by quiet fidelity to a Church that leads best when it walks lightly.

Sometimes, the most revealing statements a pope makes are not spoken at all.