I'm actually proud he's from my country, and when he became pope it was totally weird for a while, I mean, the guy who sells us newspapers was interviewed for selling him the newspaper for a while... wut.
The catholic priests change robes for different events in the church calendar. Like the first photo looks like a Christmas service. And for Easter they wear purple. I'm not saying that I'm correct, but I went to catholic school and remember learning something like that. So it's a possibility that the new guy will also have all that paraphernalia on Christmas Eve/Day service...
What happened to the holy see?