diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index 9384ef6d3..3fdd07aba 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -114,6 +114,8 @@ Bugs fixed
 * #8442: LaTeX: some indexed terms are ignored when using xelatex engine
   (or pdflatex and :confval:`latex_use_xindy` set to True) with memoir class
 * #8780: LaTeX: long words in narrow columns may not be hyphenated
+* #8788: LaTeX: ``\titleformat`` last argument in sphinx.sty should be
+  bracketed, not braced (and is anyhow not needed) 
 
 Testing
 --------
diff --git a/sphinx/texinputs/sphinx.sty b/sphinx/texinputs/sphinx.sty
index c331a6e85..6b4189b21 100644
--- a/sphinx/texinputs/sphinx.sty
+++ b/sphinx/texinputs/sphinx.sty
@@ -716,17 +716,17 @@
 % Augment the sectioning commands used to get our own font family in place,
 % and reset some internal data items (\titleformat from titlesec package)
 \titleformat{\section}{\Large\py@HeaderFamily}%
-            {\py@TitleColor\thesection}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}{\py@NormalColor}
+            {\py@TitleColor\thesection}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}
 \titleformat{\subsection}{\large\py@HeaderFamily}%
-            {\py@TitleColor\thesubsection}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}{\py@NormalColor}
+            {\py@TitleColor\thesubsection}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}
 \titleformat{\subsubsection}{\py@HeaderFamily}%
-            {\py@TitleColor\thesubsubsection}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}{\py@NormalColor}
+            {\py@TitleColor\thesubsubsection}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}
 % By default paragraphs (and subsubsections) will not be numbered because
 % sphinxmanual.cls and sphinxhowto.cls set secnumdepth to 2
 \titleformat{\paragraph}{\py@HeaderFamily}%
-            {\py@TitleColor\theparagraph}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}{\py@NormalColor}
+            {\py@TitleColor\theparagraph}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}
 \titleformat{\subparagraph}{\py@HeaderFamily}%
-            {\py@TitleColor\thesubparagraph}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}{\py@NormalColor}
+            {\py@TitleColor\thesubparagraph}{0.5em}{\py@TitleColor}
 
 
 %% GRAPHICS