Pope Francis has urged hairdressers not to gossip with their customers as they go about their jobs.
The 82-year-old pontiff warned Christian barbers and stylists that the ‘temptation of chatter easily creeps into your work environment’.
He advised visiting hairdressers, hairstylists and beauticians at the Vatican to ‘practise your profession in a Christian style’.
While cutting their customers’ hair they should be ‘treating them with kindness and courtesy, and always offering them a good word and encouragement,’ he said.
‘Each of you, in your professional work, can always act with righteousness, thus making a positive contribution to the common good of society,’ Francis said.
Francis said the cosmetologists should be guided by their patron saint, Martino de Porres, a 16th-century barber-surgeon from Peru.
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Martino was a barber-surgeon in Lima, an ancient trade which covered everything from haircuts to amputations and bloodletting.
His purported miracles include levitation, being in two places at once, instant cures, and an ability to communicate with animals.
The saint was born in Lima in 1579, died there in 1639 and was declared a saint by Pope John XXIII in 1962.
He is also the patron saint of mixed-race people, innkeepers and public health workers.
Francis previously opened a barber shop and washrooms for the homeless in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City, in 2015.
The salon service, paid for by donations and the sale of papal blessings, was the idea of the Pope’s chief alms-giver, Monsignor Konrad Krajewski.
He was moved to act after a homeless man turned down an invitation to dinner at the Vatican because he was embarrassed about his smell.
At the opening in 2015 each ‘homeless pilgrim’ received a kit including a towel, change of underwear, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream. (DailyMail)