In a cramped San Telmo workshop aglow with firelight, 82-year-old master silversmith Juan Carlos Pallarols melts bullet casings from past wars into a shimmering chalice for Pope Leo XIV—a fragile cup he hopes can toast to world peace.
An Heir to Fire and Silver
Pallarols’ shop feels suspended in time. Black-sooted anvils rest beside a grand piano; portraits of long-gone artisans share wall space with sketches for presidential batons. “My great-grandfather hammered silver in Galicia,” he tells EFE, “my father continued in Buenos Aires, and I just never left the forge.”
Those family hands have shaped objects of power for half a century. In 1973, he crafted Juan Domingo Perón’s inauguration baton; since the return of democracy in 1983, every Argentine president has posed with a Pallarols staff—except one. In 2023, President-elect Javier Milei demanded three sculpted dog heads on the handle. “A national symbol cannot carry pets,” the silversmith replied; the baton was returned and now leans, half-wrapped, in the corner of the studio.
For all the pomp of politics, Pallarols’ true passion lies in turning violence into beauty. A decade ago, he began forging “roses of peace” from the Falklands, the Spanish Civil War, and even WWII ammunition. Each petal told two stories—one of destruction and one of rebirth—and those roses now bloom in churches from Patagonia to Madrid.
Bullets, Bronze, and a Congregation of Hands
The chalice project deepens that alchemy. Neighbors file into the workshop carrying tiny parcels: a nail pulled from a trench in Monte Longdon, a 9 mm shell once fired in Kosovo, bronze shavings left from reliquaries honoring Saint Héctor Valdivieso. One by one, they drop the relics into a glowing crucible. “Each fragment is a prayer,” Pallarols whispers as sparks fly.
He insists the cup will not travel straight to Rome. First, it must journey across Argentina’s 24 provinces—and north to Chiclayo, Peru, where Pope Leo XIV served as bishop. At every stop, on village plazas and cathedral steps, ordinary people will etch their initials into the chalice’s base with a tiny steel punch. “When I finally hand it to the Holy Father,” the goldsmith says, “he will hold a chorus of thousands.”
Scholars at the National University of Quilmes note that Argentina still stores roughly 400 tons of decommissioned ammunition from past conflicts; turning a fraction of that metal into sacred art, they argue, “reimagines memory through craft.” Pallarols nods: “Bullets are only evil if we leave them so.”
The Principle of the Baton
Symbolism, he believes, must be crystal clear. His presidential batons carry the Argentine coat of arms, a sunburst, and a band of andesita wood—nothing more. “No faces, no party colors,” he repeats. That stance has earned him praise from constitutional scholars and irritation from politicians who crave personal flourishes.
When Milei rejected the dog-free baton, pundits predicted the octogenarian craftsman would capitulate. Instead, he locked the staff in his vault and moved on to the chalice. “Silver tells the truth,” he shrugs. “You cannot bully metal.”
Political historian María Sáenz-Quesada writes that Pallarols’ refusal “re-centers national ceremonies on institutions, not egos”—a quiet rebuke that resonates in a country weary of partisan theatrics.
A Cup for the Next Century
The chalice is taking shape: a stem braided like Andean wheat, a bowl wide enough to reflect every face that leans over it. The inlay will come from mate gourds donated by gauchos, turquoise beads from Mapuche weavers, and brass buttons once worn by Spanish Civil War nurses. The rim remains bare, and we await the final pouring of molten “peace metal” later this year.
Pallarols plans to depart for Rome in early 2025. Whether Pope Leo XIV sips from the cup during Mass or displays it in a Vatican gallery, the silversmith hardly minds. “What matters,” he says, “is that people remember: we melted fear into hope.”
Even at 82, he still works past midnight, Bach drifting from the old piano while a blowtorch hums. Visitors—film stars, schoolchildren, wandering tourists—step in, mesmerized by the dance of orange sparks against silver. The maestro hands each a small file: “Here, take a minute, shape your future.”
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Outside, Buenos Aires traffic sputters and horns blare, but inside the forge, the only rhythm is hammer on metal, bullet to blossom, war to worship. And in that steady cadence, Juan Carlos Pallarols pursues his life’s thesis: that a single artifact, touched by many hands, can carry a nation’s longing for concord to the heart of Christendom.