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Archbishop Pell receives the pallium from Pope John Paul
II
By Kathleen Carmody
Archbishop Pell is the first Australian archbishop to be presented with a pallium twice by the Pope.
In a ceremony of ‘firsts’, Pope John Paul II presented Dr Pell with his new pallium in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome at 5.30pm local time on Friday, June 29.
The pallium – a circular band about five
centimetres wide, made of white wool, decorated with six black silk crosses and worn about the neck chest and shoulders – symbolises the participation of archbishops in the supreme pastoral power of the Pope, giving
them the authority to rule their dioceses on his behalf.
Archbishop Pell said after receiving the pallium: “I was very pleased to be able to receive this great honour for the Catholic community of Sydney
personally from the Holy Father.”
Dr Pell received his first pallium from Pope John Paul II in 1997 when he became Archbishop of Melbourne, the first archbishop of Melbourne to receive the pallium from the
Pope since Archbishop Carr in 1886 (as each pallium is specific to a diocese, he receives a second pallium for Sydney).
The presentation marks the first time a Sydney archbishop has been presented with the
pallium directly by the Pope since 1884 when archbishop (later Cardinal) Patrick Francis Moran received the honour from Pope Leo XII.
Archbishop John Bede Polding was the first in 1842.
Until 1984,
it was traditional for an archbishop to have the pallium bestowed by an apostolic delegate in St Mary’s Cathedral.
The June 29 ceremony was also the first time two Australian archbishops have simultaneously
received the pallium in Rome. Archbishop Pell was joined by the newly appointed archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, who has been interim administrator of the Melbourne archdiocese since Dr Pell’s move to Sydney.
Archbishop Hart said receiving the pallium before the leaders of the Catholic Church was a “humbling experience”.
He was looking forward to returning to Melbourne to take up his new position, he said.
At the presentation, the Pope urged all bishops to be prepared, if necessary, to face martyrdom.
He said the Church needs bishops who feel “a longing to take the Good News of the love of God to every
human being”, and who, if necessary, are prepared to go all the way to martyrdom.
The pallium symbolises the unity of the local church with the universal church.
Some of the wool for the pallium comes
from two lambs that are blessed each year in Rome on the feast of St Agnes (January 21) and then presented to the Pope.
The lambs are then delivered to the Benedictine Sisters of St Cecilia in Rome and shorn
in the lead-up to Holy Week.
Traditionally, the pallia were made from scratch by the Sisters, who would hand-weave the wool into bands that they would then sew together and decorate.
Today, because
their numbers are reduced, the Sisters of St Cecilia have commissioned a textile company to supply the unfinished wool strips.
Each pallium is then blessed by the Pope at St Peter’s Basilica, on the eve of
the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, placed in a 350-year-old silver-gilt casket and left overnight in a cabinet under the Altar of the Confession, which is over the Tomb of St Peter.
The Mass on June 29 is the
only occasion where the archbishops wear the pallia together.
Once bestowed, liturgical rules dictate the pallium only be worn in the bishop’s own diocese and then only on such solemn ceremonies as
ordinations.
According to tradition, when he dies an archbishop with two pallia is buried with the most recent one around his neck and the other rolled up and placed under his head.
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