Palliums on St Peter’s Day
Prayer is a key that opens the door to God, unlocks selfish, fearful hearts and leads people from sadness to joy and from division to unity
An archbishop’s pallium is pictured in its leather box in Rome (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
Prayer is “the main way out: the way out for the community that risks closing up inside itself because of persecution and fear,” he said during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Prayer – entrusting oneself humbly to God and his will – “is always the way out of our personal and community’s closures,” he said.
Twenty-five archbishops appointed over the course of the past year were invited to come to Rome to concelebrate the feast day Mass with Pope Francis. They came from 15 countries.
Among those invited to concelebrate were Archbishops Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis; Francisco Moreno Barron of Tijuana, Mexico; Juan Garcia Rodriguez of Havana; and Kenneth Richards of Kingston, Jamaica. Of the new archbishops, 11 were from the Americas, 10 from Europe and one each from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Middle East.
Like last year, the pope did not confer the pallium on new archbishops during the liturgy, but rather, blessed the palliums after they were brought up from the crypt above the tomb of St. Peter. The actual imposition of the woolen band was to take place in the archbishop’s archdiocese in the presence of his faithful and bishops from neighbouring dioceses.
The pallium is a woollen band that symbolises an archbishop’s unity with the pope and his authority and responsibility to care for the flock the pope entrusted to him.In his homily, the pope said when Jesus promised Peter the keys, it was a symbol of his ability to open the kingdom of heaven, not lock it up like the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees did to those seeking to enter. By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service
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