Picture: Obama's gift to Pope Benedict - St. John Neumann's stole

In about an hour Barack Obama will present this gift to Pope Benedict XVI:

The Philly Enquirer:

The owners of the DiCocco Family St. Jude Shop are getting to be experts at this. When there's a presentation for the pope, call the store in Havertown.

Twice in the last 15 months, the store owners have been tapped for their Benedict XVI know-how.

The first time, they helped supply a specially made chair the pope used during a U.S. visit. This time, they assisted the White House in finding a gift for him.

That present will be given to Benedict as part of President Obama's visit to the Vatican tomorrow.

The box will contain a stole that had been draped around the enshrined body of St. John Neumann in Philadelphia for nearly 20 years.

AmP reader John clarifies:

I suppose the headline isn't wrong, but I wouldn't describe this as "St. John Neumann's stole" since he didn't wear it while he was alive. As I understand it, his body was first displayed in the '60s when the cause for his canonization was underway. When the shrine was renovated in the late '80s, they dressed it in modern, polyester, Gothic-style vestments. Last year, Cardinal Rigali had them replaced with silk Roman-style vestments like the saint would have worn when he was alive. I guess the stole the president is giving to the Holy Father is classified as a third-class relic, which ain't nothin', but it struck me as odd. Still, I guess it's better than the box-set of DVDs he gave the British PM (which couldn't even be watched on the other side of the pond).

I wonder what other gifts Obama has brought for the Holy Father?

You can find out more about the stole here at the Redemptorists website.

Fr. Z., I might add, is none too impressed.

During a recent trip to Baltimore I actually visited one of the parishes St. John Neumann pastored. Very cool. It's a small (Catholic) world.