ARCHBISHOP MALCOLM WILL RECEIVES THE PALLIUM FROM THE HOLY FATHER
34 Archbishops received Pallium - Archbishops are reminded they are shepherds
 
[ Fr. Sunil De Silva - 29.06.2009 ]
His Grace the Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith received the Pallium from Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI together with 33 other Archbishops on Monday 29 June, Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles, at the Eucharistic Celebration, in the Roman basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls.

Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI presided at the concelebration of the Eucharist with new Metropolitan Archbishops upon whom he presented the pallium during the course of the ceremony.

The pallium represents both Christ's flock and Christ himself, the Good Shepherd, says Pope Benedict XVI.

The Holy Father spoke about the significance of the pallium when he bestowed it on 34 new metropolitan archbishops during a Mass on Monday, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.

The Holy Father performs the Rite of Blessing of the palliums after the Liturgy of the Word. The archbishops stand to profess their fidelity and obedience to the Bishop of Rome and then process to receive the pallium from the hands of the Pope.

In his homily, the Holy Father explained the meaning of the woolen band, "knit with the wool from the lambs that the Pope blesses on the feast of St. Agnes."

"It recalls Christ's lambs and sheep, which the Lord has entrusted to Peter with the task of tending to them," Benedict XVI said, citing the 21st chapter of John.

The pallium, the Pope continued, also "recalls Christ himself, who as the Good Shepherd, takes upon his shoulders the lost sheep -- humanity -- to bring them home."

"It reminds us of the fact that he, the Supreme Pastor, wanted to make himself the Lamb, to take on from within the destiny of all of us, to carry us and heal us from within," he added.

The Holy Father also asked the Lord "to allow us to be upright pastors like him," not out of a sense of obligation, but with "generous spirits."
 

Pallium - a white woolen band with pendants in front and back worn over the chasuble by a pope or archbishop as a symbol of full episcopal authority, b: a draped rectangular cloth worn as a cloak by men of ancient Greece and Rome

The sign of an archbishop's authority is not a scepter, but a circular stole made of lamb's wool to evoke the idea that he is, first of all, a shepherd.

The stole, called a pallium, goes around the archbishop's neck and is worn over his chasuble when he celebrates the Eucharist. It has a 12-inch strip of material hanging down the front and back.

Every year on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the pope places a pallium around the neck of each prelate named in the past year to head an archdiocese.

Prelates from the U.S. and Canada scheduled to receive a pallium from Pope Benedict XVI this year are: Archbishops Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit; George J. Lucas of Omaha, Neb.; Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis; Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans; J. Michael Miller of Vancouver, British Columbia; and Pierre-Andre Fournier of Rimouski, Quebec.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, England, will be among those receiving the pallium.

As the church's chief pastor, Pope Benedict also wears a pallium. But while an archbishop's is made from the wool of lambs blessed by the pope on the feast of St. Agnes, the pope's is made of the wool of both lambs and sheep to reflect Jesus telling Peter "Feed my lambs" and "Feed my sheep."

For more than three years, Pope Benedict used a pallium that was wider, longer and worn differently from the ones given to archbishops.

When he was elected in April 2005, the pope accepted a pallium based on the design of the pallium from the first millennium of Christianity. With the pallium draped around his shoulders, its ends hung down his left side and reached below his knees.

In June 2008 Msgr. Guido Marini, the papal master of ceremonies, announced that Pope Benedict, like Pope John Paul II, would go back to wearing a pallium similar to the ones worn by the archbishops.

Msgr. Marini, who constantly invokes a desire to illustrate liturgical "development in continuity" with the past to explain how and why Pope Benedict's liturgies have been mixing older and modern vestments, said using the shorter pallium showed how it had changed "over the span of more than 12 centuries." But he also said the short version was easier to wear and so was more practical.

When the long pallium was introduced in 2005, Vatican officials had explained that, historically, the pallium became shorter as the chasubles worn at Mass became heavier and more elaborately decorated. Even after the Second Vatican Council, when lighter materials were used again, chasubles tended to have a strong design on the chest and a long pallium hanging down one side seemed to clash aesthetically.

Accepting the longer pallium, Pope Benedict also accepted a new set of chasubles dotted with ancient symbols such as bees, shells or flames for Pentecost, rather than having a large central design.

But now that Pope Benedict uses both the newer chasubles as well as those of his predecessors, the short pallium was judged to be more appropriate.

When Pope Benedict went to L'Aquila, Italy, in April to visit the survivors of a major earthquake, he carried with him the long pallium he had received when he was elected.

Visiting the severely damaged Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in L'Aquila and venerating the remains of St. Celestine V, a 13th-century pope who abdicated just a few months after his election, Pope Benedict placed the long woolen pallium on the saintly pope's casket and left it there as a gift.
 

The following 34 Metropolitan Archbishops received Pallium from the Holy Father Pope Benedict :

 - Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, Sri Lanka

-  Archbishop Ghaleb Moussa Abdalla Bader of Algiers, Algeria.

 - Archbishop Domingo Diaz Martinez of Tulancingo, Mexico.

 - Archbishop Pierre-Andre Fournier of Rimouski, Canada.

 - Archbishop Sergio da Rocha, Brazil.

 - Archbishop Giuseppe Bertori of Florence, Italy.

 - Archbishop Salvatore Pappalardo of Siracusa, Italy.

 - Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv of the Latins, Ukraine.

 - Archbishop Mauricio Grotto de Camargo of Botucatu, Brazil.

 - Archbishop Joseph Ake Yapo of Gagnoa, Ivory Coast.

 - Archbishop Paul Mandla Khumalo C.M.M. of Pretoria, South Africa.

 - Archbishop Marcel Utembi Tapa of Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo.

 - Archbishop Manuel Felipe Diaz Sanchez of Calabozo, Venezuela.

 - Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas of San Salvador, El Salvador.

 - Archbishop J. Michael Miller, C.S.B. of Vancouver, Canada.

 - Archbishop Allen Henry Vigneron of Detroit, U.S.A.

 - Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra of Valencia, Spain.

 - Archbishop Gil Antonio Moreira of Juiz de Fora, Brazil.

 - Archbishop Victor Sanchez Espinosa of Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico.

 - Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlalnepantla, Mexico.

 - Archbishop Anicetus Bongsu Antonius Sinaga O.F.M. Cap. of Bedan, Indonesia.

 - Archbishop Philip Naameh of Tamale, Ghana.

 - Archbishop Ismael Rueda Sierra of Bucaramanga, Colombia.

 - Archbishop Andrzej Dziega of Szczecin-Kamien, Poland.

 - Archbishop Timothy Michael Dolan of New York, U.S.A.

 - Archbishop Orani Joao Tempesta O. Cist. of Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

 - Archbishop Vincent Gerard Nichols of Westminster, England.

 - Archbishop Domenico Umberto D'Ambrosio of Lecce, Italy.

 - Archbishop Braulio Rodriguez Plata of Toledo, Spain.

 - Archbishop Robert James Carlson of Saint Louis, U.S.A.

 - Archbishop Philippe Ouedraogo of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

 - Archbishop Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij of Bangkok, Thailand.

 - Archbishop George Joseph Lucas of Omaha, U.S.A.

 - Archbishop Gregory Michael Aymond of New Orleans, U.S.A.

 
 
 
Maintained by Rev. Fr. Sunil De Silva - E-mail : sunilde@sltnet.lk
ARCHDIOCESE OF COLOMBO - SRI LANKA