The unholy (and unlicensed) flood of Philly-made pope merchandise is here

Call it divine inspiration.

Frank Sciarra, a record promoter from Fort Washington, was at his barbershop when one of the guys there showed him a selfie with a cardboard cutout of Pope Francis. It hit Sciarra: There's a lot of merchandising to be done ahead of the papal visit - and why should Aramark, the official retail partner of the World Meeting of Families, close all the sales?

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance," he said.

So he bought a domain, popefranciscomestophilly.com, and some images of the pope, and got to work printing T-shirts that proclaim everything from "Best Pope Ever," to "Yo Adrian I was there in 2015." Others depict the pontiff clutching a cheesesteak. Sciarra has hired five salespeople to shop the line to retailers like Masquerade on Columbus Boulevard, and is engaging 17 hawkers to hit the streets during the big visit, Sept. 26 and 27.

Though official World Meeting of Families merchandise already is selling briskly, many local entrepreneurs and artists are rushing to market with their own unofficial - not to mention unlicensed and unauthorized - wares marking the papal visit.

The flood of creative pope-a-phernalia ranges from the expected run of T-shirts, buttons, and posters; to the utterly idiosyncratic, like pope cheese and a pope toaster that produces two miraculous slices of pope toast; and beers like Holy Wooder, a tripel from Philadelphia Brewing Co.

Those behind these creations range from amateurs doing it mostly for fun to speculators hoping to turn serious profits.

Sciarra, for one, has invested more than $5,000 in printing around 3,000 shirts, and expects to at least quadruple his money.

But he has plenty of competition.

There's gear featuring "Fresh Pope," "Jurassic Pope," and "Popemon," all by Pope is Dope, a brand hastily assembled by coworkers Gabe Wiener, Kieran Hetznecker, and Kody Roman of the Manayunk office of advertising company Lunchbox Communications.

There are quirky offerings dreamed up by local T-shirt companies that couldn't resist taking a swing: Philly Phaithful in Northern Liberties has a "Philavatican" shirt proclaiming "I turned water ice into wine," and Westmont's Bark Tees is printing "I [miter] PHL" shirts and images of Pope Francis with Phillies' and Eagles' pennants.

Inevitably, there are "POPE" shirts, taking off on the LOVE sculpture by Robert Indiana.

"Is that the artist for LOVE Park?" asked Michael Tandarich of Kennett Square, one maker of such shirts. "We just wanted something to correlate with the event and pull in some ties with Philadelphia." He and wife Ally registered the domain popefrancisphiladelphia.com six months ago, "to not only make some money but give back to the Catholic community." They plan to give an undisclosed portion of proceeds to Catholic charities.

Rob Calabrese, manager at the Philly Team Store at 17th and Chestnut, began stocking Bark Tees' papal apparel in June. A hot seller is a Pope Francis/Eagles T-shirt, combining the two Philadelphia obsessions of the season. He ordered 100 and expects to restock. "We get a lot of people calling looking for them," he said.

Still, there are legal issues to consider, said Lynn Rzonca, an intellectual-property lawyer at Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia. Those can include infringement on trademark (like the World Meeting of Families logo), copyright (a photographer's rights to an image of the pope), and right of publicity (in Pennsylvania, even celebrities have control over commercial uses of their image).

Rzonca noted that in 2009, the Vatican issued a declaration that it holds exclusive rights to the pope's image, title, and name.

"The intellectual-property issues arise when you start commercializing a person," she said. "But, beyond that, even if it's a technical violation of the law, is it going to be enforced? In the research I did, I did not see much enforcement activity for other papal visits."

Joan Doyle, a retail consultant for the World Meeting of Families, isn't fazed by the competition.

Sales through the official online store are strong, and during the gathering, she expects to do brisk business at the two retail locations in the Convention Center and approximately 14 more on the Parkway.

The anticipated best-selling item? It's not the pope bobblehead or the plush pope doll, or even the World Meeting koozies.

It's the rosaries.

"We think of these as the most important keepsake that the pilgrims are going to take away from the event. The Holy Father urges us to pray the rosary every day, so this was a very important item to us to get this right," Doyle said. "Frankly, we see this as our concert T-shirt."

Also selling well online are the products based on Kennett Square artist Nielson Carlin's holy family icon painting, she said.

"While I don't doubt that there will be lots of people who will want a T-shirt with the pope holding a cheesesteak," she said, "the reality is the people who are attending the Mass are there because of their faith, and so these products resonate."

On the flip side, some less reverent ideas pitched to the World Meeting didn't gain traction.

"There was a lot of blue-sky thinking" among hopeful vendors, Doyle said. "Not disrespectful, just . . . not quite the direction we wanted to go."

Which may be why Pope is Dope's Wiener contacted Aramark numerous times with no response - or why you can't buy a pope toaster on the World Meeting website.

Debby Fireman, owner of Fireworks, a Penn Valley marketing company, is the woman behind "Toast the Pope." (She is, by the way, still hoping Aramark will pick up her creation for the holiday season.) The $69.95 offering, for now available at toastthepope.com, uses a metal stencil of the pope's portrait to enable consumers to make their own "Pope-Tarts." One customer told her that when his parents come to town from Australia to see the pope, he plans to surprise them at breakfast. "People like the meaning of having a miracle on your toast."

At the least, it might go nicely with the pope-shaped mozzarella that will be available at Pastificio in South Philadelphia. Owners Anthony Messina and Frank Sangiuliano commissioned artist Larry Buss to make the mold.

"I see that being a centerpiece at the table decorated with some tomatoes and basil," Messina said. He's taken 80 advance orders at $20 apiece.

Still, to Todd Kimmell, many of these offerings aren't in good taste.

"There's a lot of really terrible stuff out there," he said. "Putting boxing gloves on the pope and having him holding a dripping cheesesteak at the same time? There's a lot of that going around."

So Kimmell, of Overbrook Farms, launched his own product line on Etsy, featuring cartoonish images of the pope, such as in William Penn's place atop City Hall. Kimmell commissioned the works from Norwegian artist Fred Lammers.

Doyle said he and others were free to give it a shot.

"More is more in this case. This is a huge event. We probably couldn't fulfill all of the merchandising needs," she said. "I like to think that independents and locals will reap some of the benefits of the papal visit - hopefully with well-designed and appropriate products, but we don't control that."

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