Are beards now the fashion for senior clerics? Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the recently appointed Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, wears one, as does Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a member of the Pope’s nine-member advisory body. The newly installed Bishop of Leeds, Marcus Stock, has a beard as does another papal adviser, Cardinal Sean O’Malley (above), although as a Capuchin friar, this is the tradition of his order.Over the years, the Church has had different attitudes to the wearing of beards by clergy. The 1917 Code of Canon Law said clerics’ hair should be styled simply, while the United States bishops in 1866 decided that priests should be forbidden wearing beards at all. Generally speaking, priests have been allowed to grow beards as long as they have been ke