Papal Coronation - John Paul II and The Coronation

John Paul II and The Coronation

After John Paul I's sudden death following a thirty-three day reign, the new pope John Paul II, opted to copy his predecessor's ceremony without coronation. In his homily at his inauguration Mass, he said that Paul VI had "left his successors free to decide" whether to wear the papal tiara. He went on:

Pope John Paul I, whose memory is so vivid in our hearts, did not wish to have the tiara; nor does his Successor wish it today. This is not the time to return to a ceremony and an object considered, wrongly, to be a symbol of the temporal power of the Popes.

John Paul II's 1996 Apostolic Constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, now in force, does not specify the form that the "solemn ceremony of the inauguration of the pontificate" of a new pope should take, whether with or without a coronation.

Existing papal tiaras remain available for any future pope who may choose to use one, unlikely though it may appear that it will ever be used again.