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Clerics reverenced the statue of St. Peter after attending Pope Francis’ celebration of Mass marking the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Peter’s Basilica June 29. After the Mass, the pope presented palliums to new archbishops from around the world.
Clerics reverenced the statue of St. Peter after attending Pope Francis’ celebration of Mass marking the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Peter’s Basilica June 29. After the Mass, the pope presented palliums to new archbishops from around the world.
Photo Credit: Paul Haring | Catholic News Service

Pallium is sign that shepherds live for their sheep, pope says

Pope Francis blessed palliums, a symbol of an archbishop’s unity with the pope, for 30 archbishops on Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul

VATICAN CITY — Blessing bands of wool that archbishops will wear around their shoulders, Pope Francis said, “It is a sign that the shepherds do not live for themselves but for the sheep.”

“It is a sign that, in order to possess life, we have to lose it, give it away,” the pope said during his homily at Mass for the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29.

The 30 archbishops receiving palliums included Archbishops Wilton D. Gregory of Washington and Michael J. Byrnes of Agana, Guam.

The palliums are a woolen band that the heads of archdioceses wear around their shoulders over their Mass vestments.

Benedictine nuns at the Monastery of St. Cecilia in Rome use wool from lambs blessed by the pope each year on the Jan. 21 feast of St. Agnes to make the palliums, which are kept by St. Peter’s tomb until the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The palliums are about 3 inches wide and have a 14-inch strip hanging down the front and the back. The strips are finished with black silk, almost like the hooves of the sheep the archbishop is symbolically carrying over his shoulders.

“I love the imagery” of the pallium, Archbishop Byrnes told Catholic News Service. “Just the way it’s shaped suggests carrying the lamb on your shoulders.”

The 60-year-old archbishop was an auxiliary bishop in Detroit until he was sent to Guam amid turmoil surrounding sexual abuse allegations against the previous archbishop and concerns about his administration of the archdiocese. A Vatican court later found former Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron guilty of the sexual abuse of minors.

The pallium, given to archbishops by the pope, also is a sign of their unity with him as they minister to a portion of the Catholic “flock.” So, Archbishop Byrnes said, it is a sign of his obedience to the pope, but also expresses “my obedience, of a sort, to the people of Guam,” and the obligation to respond to and assist them.

Receiving the pallium, he said, “is a boost to me. It illustrates a change in our diocese,” symbolically sealing a new start for the archdiocese.

Archbishop Gregory, speaking at a reception the afternoon before the Mass, said that receiving the pallium “is not simply an honor, it’s a challenge and a responsibility, which I gladly accept at his (the pope’s) invitation.”

The archbishop said, “I look forward to caring for the flock in Washington to the best of my ability.”

In his homily at the Mass, Pope Francis focused on the figures of Sts. Peter and Paul and how Jesus chose them despite their failings and sins.

Both of them, he said, “made great mistakes: Peter denied the Lord, while Paul persecuted the Church of God.”

“We may wonder why the Lord chose not to give us two witnesses of utter integrity, with clean records and impeccable lives,” he said. But there is a lesson there.

“The starting point of the Christian life is not our worthiness; in fact, the Lord was able to accomplish little with those who thought they were good and decent,” the pope said. “Whenever we consider ourselves smarter or better than others, that is the beginning of the end.”

“The Lord does not work miracles with those who consider themselves righteous, but with those who know themselves needy,” he said. “He is not attracted by our goodness; that is not why he loves us. He loves us just as we are; he is looking for people who are not self-sufficient, but ready to open their hearts to him.”

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Pallium is sign that shepherds live for their sheep pope says 4200

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