By Sarah Mac Donald - 27 June, 2015
Archbishops Eamon Martin and Kieran O’Reilly will be among the 46 newly appointed archbishops who will receive the pallium from Pope Francis on Monday after he blesses their vestments during Mass for the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul (29 June).
The Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Charles Brown, will formally vest both archbishops with the pallium in their respective archdiocese in the coming weeks.
This is in keeping with a new policy established by Pope Francis which requires each archbishop to be vested with the pallium in their own archdiocese by the apostolic nuncio.
Mgr Guido Marini, the papal master of liturgical ceremonies, explained in a letter to new archbishops that Pope Francis believes this would “greatly favour the participation of the local Church.”
The two Irish prelates will receive the pallium privately from the Pontiff after the Mass on Monday.
The pallium is a white woollen strip, worn around the neck in liturgical functions, symbolising the union between a metropolitan archbishop and the Bishop of Rome.
For years, each new archbishop had received his pallium directly from the Pontiff, during Mass on the patronal feast of the Church of Rome.
Along with Archbishop Martin and O’Reilly, other archbishops who will received the pallium on Monday include two cardinals, Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne and Antonio Canizares Llovera of Valencia, as well as Archbishops Blaise Cupich of Chicago, John Wester of Santa Fe, and Anthony Fisher of Sydney, Australia.
Archbishop Martin’s investiture with the pallium will take place at 7pm Vigil Mass in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, on Saturday 4 July.
Archbishop Brown will conduct the investiture in the presence of representatives of the nine dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Armagh: Ardagh & Clonmacnoise, Clogher, Derry, Down & Connor, Dromore, Meath, Raphoe and Armagh itself.
Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly’s investiture will take place on a date in the early autumn.
The wearing of the pallium dates back to the fourth century, and predates the mitre and the crozier as episcopal symbols.
The pallium is a woollen band, about three inches wide, and has a fourteen-inch strip hanging down the front and the back, which are tipped with black silk to recall the dark hoof of the sheep the archbishop is symbolically carrying over his shoulders.
St John Paul II first placed the woollen bands around the shoulders of metropolitan archbishops at Mass on the Feast day of Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June 1983.
An ancient tradition, dating back probably at least to the sixth century, it involves the Pope blessing the pallium and concedes its use by certain bishops.
The current Code of Canon Law stipulates that within three months of their appointment or consecration all metropolitan archbishops must request a pallium from the pope.
Full list of those receiving the pallium:
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, archbishop of Cologne, Germany
Cardinal Antonio Canizares Llovera, archbishop of Valencia, Spain
Archbishop Julian Leow Beng Kim of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Archbishop Eduardo Eliseo Martin of Rosario, Argentina
Archbishop Florentino Galang Lavarias of San Fernando, Philippines
Archbishop Anthony Pappusamy of Madurai, India
Archbishop Sevastianos Rossolatos of Athens, Greece
Archbishop Thomas Aquino Manyo Maeda of Osaka, Japan
Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra of Madrid, Spain
Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, Ireland
Archbishop Anthony Colin Fisher, O.P., of Sydney, Australia
Archbishop Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, U.S.A.
Archbishop Oscar Omar Aparicio Cespedes of Cochabamba, Bolivia
Archbishop Jose Antonio Fernandez Hurtado of Durango, Mexico
Archbishop Stane Zore, O.F.M., of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Archbishop Djalwana Laurent Lompo of Niamey, Nigeria
Archbishop Vincenzo Pelvi of Foggia-Bovino, Italy
Archbishop Richard Daniel Alarcon Urrutia of Cuzco, Peru
Archbishop Jean Mbarga of Yaounde, Cameroon
Archbishop Edmundo Ponciano Valenzuela Mellid, S.D.B., of Asuncion, Paraguay
Archbishop Beatus Kinyaiya, O.F.M. Cap., of Dodoma, Tanzania
Archbishop Max Leroy Mesidor of Cap-Haitien, Haiti
Archbishop Kieran O’Reilley, S.M.A., of Cashel, Ireland
Archbishop Filomeno do Nascimento Vieira Dias of Luanda, Angola
Archbishop Martin Musonde Kivuva of Mombasa, Kenya
Archbishop Vicente Jimenez Zamora of Zaragoza, Spain
Archbishop Benjamin Ndiaye of Dakar, Senegal
Archbishop Jose Antonio Peruzzo of Curitiba, Brazil
Archbishop Menghesteab Tesfamariam, M.C.C.J., of Asmara, Eritrea
Archbishop Stefan Hesse of Hamburg, Germany
Archbishop Juan Nsue Edjang Maye of Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
Archbishop Yustinus Harjosusanto, M.S.F., of Samarinda, Indonesia
Archbishop Freddy Antonio de Jesus Breton Martinez of Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic
Archbishop Charles Jude Scicluna of Malta, Malta
Archbishop David Macaire, O.P., of Fort-de-France, Martinique, France
Archbishop Alojzij Cvikl. S.J., of Maribor, Slovenia
Archbishop Fulop Kocsis of Hajdudorog for Catholics of Byzantine Rite, Hungary
Archbishop John Charles Wester of Santa Fe, U.S.A.
Archbishop Denis Grondin of Rimouski, Canada
Archbishop Francescantonio Nole, O.F.M. Conv., of Cosenza-Bisignano, Italy
Archbishop Celso Morga Iruzubieta of Merida-Badajoz, Spain
Archbishop Gustavo Rodriguez Vega of Yucatan, Mexico
Archbishop-elect Erio Castellucci of Modena-Nonantola, Italy
Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin, Germany
Archbishop Lionginas Virbalas, S.J., of Kaunas, Lithuania
Archbishop Thomas Ignatius Macwan of Gandhinagar, India.
