Holy Blessings and The Hobby
When Pope Leo XIV put on a White Sox hat during a “Sposi Novelli” ceremony in June 2025, collectors everywhere asked themselves one question: “When will a piece of that hat show up in a card?” The joke may be on all of us — according to Fr. Zack Burns of the Good Shepherd Catholic Community in Colleyville, TX, if the Pope blessed that hat, to sell it would be considered a sin.
“Canon Law prohibits blessed items to be sold,” he explains.
However, if he just put it on and handed it back? All good. “It’s not a ‘relic’ because Pope Leo is alive,” Fr. Burns says. “But one day, if he is declared by the Church to be venerable, blessed, or saint, then the hat will be a ‘second class relic’ — which is clothing worn by a saintly person or a belonging touched by that person.”
Fortunately, the hat isn’t the only piece of Pope Leo XIV you can collect.
The Pope Leo XIV Topps NOW card ended up with a print run of 133,535 — smashing the previous Topps on-demand records and even surpassing the famous 99,177 print run of the Project 2020 “Keith Shore Griffey”. The first American pope obviously has a giant amount of appeal, and attracted scores of new collectors who wanted a piece of history. But weeks after the card’s release, there’s a feeling of, “Now what?”
Do you put it into protectors and add it to your collection, tucking the Pope into a tub in your basement? Can you hang it on your wall like you would a cross? Should you get it blessed and “up” its holiness?
Topps RIPPED talked to Fr. Jeremy Zipple, S.J. of St. Martin de Porres Church in Belize, and Fr. Burns. They not only answered all our questions, but they offered up some insight into things you may not have known about blessed items.
Topps RIPPED: Can you hang the Pope card up in your room like you would a cross — or a picture of Mary?
Fr. Zipple: You can definitely hang it up in your room. Traditionally, many Catholic families have hung a picture of the Pope in their homes. He’s the leader of our Church and the “dad” of our family (the word “pope” comes from the ancient Greek word for “father.”). But we don’t venerate his image. Veneration is reserved for saints, so if Topps would make a holy card of Mary, or a recently deceased pope like St. John Paul II, you could totally venerate those. But a living pope? No.
Fr. Burns: An image of someone who is alive would simply serve as a reminder to the faithful to pray for that person. We have a handful of images of Pope Leo hung in our church narthex and office area — I was just visiting my sister and she has two on her refrigerator.
RIPPED: Is there any kind of innate holiness associated with a trading card of the Pope? Just by featuring his image, does it make it holy?
Fr. Zipple: No. We do have our own version of trading cards in the Catholic Church called “holy cards,” and they depict people who are already saints in heaven. A holy card, just like a statue, is kind of a reminder of their living presence — a visual aid as we think about and pray to a particular saint. But again, that only works for those who’ve died and are in heaven. Not for living people, not even if it’s the pope.
Fr. Burns: There is nothing innately holy about a Topps card of the Pope. If anything, it’s just a great opportunity for secular and Church culture to intersect!
RIPPED: How much holier would the card become if I dunked it in holy water at church on Sunday?
Fr. Zipple: Don’t do that.
Fr. Burns: I suppose 100% holier, as it would then be blessed — what makes holy water “holy” is a blessing, or minor exorcism, over the water by a priest or deacon. Before that, it was just a cardstock image of the Pope.
RIPPED: How much holier does the card become if I had a priest bless it at mass? And would I have to ask the priest specifically to do it after mass?
Fr. Zipple: Well, Catholics love to have priests bless things. As a priest, I’ve blessed rosaries, statues, houses, cars, motorcycles, commercial fishing boats, running shoes, pets, livestock, you name it. So there’s no reason a priest couldn’t bless your trading card. It would make it at least a little holier.
Fr. Burns: And a priest can do this at any time, not just after mass.
RIPPED: Does a bishop blessing the card make it holier than if a priest did it?
Fr. Zipple: Nah, a blessing is a blessing. You might gain bragging rights by telling your super Catholic friends that it was blessed by a bishop, but it won’t make your card any holier.
Fr. Burns: A bishop possesses the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders, so I suppose his blessing is more “powerful” in that regard.
RIPPED: Would the card hold any more holiness if I brought it to Vatican City, into St. Peter’s, and mailed it back to myself from their post office?
Fr. Zipple: You have too much free time on your hands.
Fr. Burns: That just sounds like a waste of postage (laughs). If you touched the card to St. Peter’s Tomb, however, then it would become a relic.
RIPPED: If I’m in Vatican City and Pope Leo blesses the crowd and I hold up my card, does that mean the card is blessed? Or do I specifically have to get it blessed?
Fr. Zipple: Yeah, that would count. Every Wednesday in the Vatican, the Pope holds an audience open to the public and at the end imparts his Apostolic Blessing upon the people present and any objects they’ve brought. So if you hold your card up during the blessing, it’ll certainly be blessed by the pope. Then you can brag to your friends that the pope blessed his own card. Kinda meta.
Fr. Burns: If he is asking for people to raise items to be blessed, then it’s blessed. If he’s meaning to impart a specific blessing on the people, it would not be. Blessing is a matter of intention, not proximity. For instance, if a man in disguise snuck into an ordination mass and the bishop laid hands on him to be ordained a priest, it wouldn’t count because it was not the bishop’s intention to ordain anyone other than his seminarians. Just because the imposter was present when a blessing was offered doesn’t mean it was for him.
RIPPED: If I get it blessed by multiple priests, like if I take it on vacation and a tour of parishes, will that make it holier?
Fr. Zipple: No. Once it’s blessed, it’s blessed. It can’t get more blessed.
Fr. Burns: It would be a nice way to seek the intercession of many different saints. I have a rosary that I touch to all sorts of holy sites and relics.
RIPPED: Is there any kind of sin associated with selling my pope card at a profit?
Fr. Zipple: The Catholic Church prohibits buying and selling sacred objects. It’s called the sin of “simony.” This mainly applies to relics of saints, which are considered public property of the Church for everyone’s devotional use and not intended as private property. But it also includes stuff like charging excessive fees for sacraments or blessings, as well as profiting off the sale of blessed objects and devotional items like statues or Bibles. So yeah, probably a sin to sell the card for a profit if it’s already been blessed.
Fr. Burns: But as long as it is not blessed and you are asking a fair price, it’s fair game!
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