As Pope Francis leaned in for a kiss, a three-year-old, Estella Westrick went for his skullcap, known as a Zuchetto in Italian, and the moment was captured on camera.
The moment the little took-off Pope's hat
A 3-year-old Atlanta girl named Estella Westrick, went viral after she had an unforgettable interaction with Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis on Wednesday in Rome, the Italian capital.
The girl and her family had lined up for hours with a family friend to try to catch Pope Francis after his weekly audience.
As Pope Francis leaned in for a kiss, three-year-old went for his skullcap, known as a zuchetto in Italian. It happened too fast for her dad, Scott to stop her. “She does what she wants,” he said.
In a video posted on Twitter by Mountain Butorac, Estella was seen leaning forward to get a kiss from the pope, and then, she made her move to snatch his white zucchetto. "Took my Goddaughter to meet the pope. She stole his hat!," he captioned the video clip.
The crowd erupted in laughter, as did Pope Francis, who simply returned the cap to his head and moved on with his greetings. The video ends with Butorac laughing and saying in disbelief, “she really took his hat!”
CBS News correspondent, Seth Doane reported that the little girl's mom, Alexis said afterwards; “It was the first thing she told me when she came in the door, she said ‘Mommy, I saw the pope, I got his hat,’” she said.
Greg Burke, the head of the Holy See press office, says the pope relishes these unscripted moments.
“Obviously the pope is not a regular guy, he’s the pope! But as much as possible, I think he wants to deal with people as if he were,” Burke said.