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You Can Buy His Cap On eBay

by Chris Tognotti

Looking for an exciting, high-priced gift for the Roman Catholic in your life who has everything? Well, you're in luck, presuming you've got a cool $130,000 or so to spend — Pope Francis' skull cap is now on eBay, and it could be yours. Francis turned the skull cap over to the Italian comedy show Le Iene, which translates as "the Hyenas," when someone from the show asked him for it during a stop in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, according to Time. They offered a replacement cap, and after a brief inspection, Francis handed over his old one and took them up on the trade, according to AFP, making an instant piece of papal memorabilia with a price sure to soar even higher.

Luckily, if you want to put in a bid — in which case, your blood is a lot richer than mine — you can feel good knowing that the money won't just line some Italian TV show's coffers. Rather, it's being donated to a charitable cause which sounds nothing if not worthy: Le Iene said it'll be put towards combating child mortality in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the AFP. In other words, drop some crazy money, get an awesome skull cap, and help the fight against child mortality abroad. What cash-rich man or woman could resist?

If you're looking for a cool pope-related souvenir, it probably doesn't get much better than a Pope Francis hat. Francis has been a dramatic departure on the public stage from his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, embracing a considerably more humble lifestyle, and he's earned a lot of adoration for it — no less than LGBT magazine The Advocate awarded him their Person of the Year award for 2013, on the strength of his relatively accepting rhetoric on LGBT rights.

Even though he still backs the official Church's opposition to topics like gay marriage, he's been light years more progressive in his words on the matter than Benedict ever was. He even rankled Catholic traditionalists by washing the feet of convicted prisoners back in March 2013, including those of women and Muslims.

Basically, he's positioned himself as a sort of people's pope, and as such, it's easy to see why somebody might prize his well-worn old skull cap so highly.

Bidding on the skull cap closes in about five days, so if you're actually in the position to take the plunge on something like this — again, bitterly envious — you've got nearly a week to work with. It's anybody's guess how high the total will go, but at the bare minimum, we now know this — Pope Francis' skull cap is already four times pricier than a Derek Jeter 2006 Yankees playoffs jersey, meaning the words "game-worn" pale in comparison to "pope-worn."

Images: rome-italy/eBay