For those who grew up in a Catholic immigrant family and are currently making a living off of their creativity, meeting the Pope may be the only guaranteed way to convince your mom that you’re doing real work. This week, the Manila-born, Los Angeles-bred designer Rhuigi Villaseñor experienced that honor when he visited the Vatican with the express purpose of meeting Pope Leo XIV and presented him with a letterman jacket made by his own label, Rhude.

“I was talking to my mother because, growing up super Catholic and singing in the choir, this [experience] was so holy to me,” Villaseñor told me the next day over Zoom, with Milanese graffiti visible in the background behind him. “Being a guest here was bigger than even probably, I don’t know, meeting my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents that I’d never met before.” The opportunity arose thanks to the former Bally designer’s current gig as the creative director of the Lombardian soccer club Como 1907, which had coordinated a visit to the Vatican.

For his Holiness, Villaseñor wore one of his label’s suits and topped it with a Brioni tie. (Brioni is Como 1907’s official tailor.) “I also met the president of the Czech Republic,” he smirked. “Had to do a little name-drop there.”

Originally, Villaseñor had not planned on giving the Pope anything (he wasn’t sure if that was permitted), much less the jacket he had packed to wear himself while he was traveling with the team, but a friend had convinced him otherwise.

The friend “was like, ‘Did you bring that for the Pope?’”, referencing Villaseñor’s jacket. “Immediately, I looked at him, and I was like, ‘Absolutely not. It’s just for me to wear,’” the designer recounts. “And he was like, ‘Well, it looks like a jacket the Pope would love.’”

Courtesy of Rhuigi Villaseñor

Courtesy of Rhuigi Villaseñor

When I asked him to pontificate as to why the Pope would like this particular jacket—an ochre-toned wool bomber with the cheeky brand name embroidered on its breast in black cursive—Villaseñor couldn’t say. Though he did mention that it was of excellent quality and made of suede and vicuña, the latter of which is a camelid native to Peru, where Pope Leo served for the majority of his clerical career, eventually becoming the bishop of the coastal city of Chiclayo.

“When he walked out, I was like, ‘Chi-town, stand up,’” Villaseñor said, laughing at his own “no-filter” excitement around the Chicago-born Pope, who heeded the hometown call and approached him. By then, the American designer was feeling uncertain about his impromptu gift, offering it to the pontiff while also giving him the option to decline. “He was like, ‘No, no, no. I want it,” Villaseñor said. When the designer asked if he could photograph the moment, the Pope agreed, kindly turning the jacket’s logo out so that it was facing the camera.