Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / Archbishop Vigneron to receive pallium June 29
Archbishop Vigneron to receive pallium June 29
by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published June 26, 2009
Detroit — Archbishop Allen Vigneron will receive the pallium – a symbol of pastoral authority and unity with the Apostolic See – from Pope Benedict XVI in a Vatican ceremony Monday, June 29.
Archbishop Vigneron is among five new American archbishops, and 40-some from around the world who will receive the woolen band – a form of stole – from the Holy Father at a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul.
A vestment worn by popes since the fourth century and given by popes to metropolitan archbishops since the sixth century, the pallium is a narrow band of lamb’s wool worn around the neck with a portion that hangs down in front.
The Holy Father wears his pallium when celebrating Mass, and metropolitan archbishops wear theirs when celebrating Mass with in their own jurisdictions.
A metropolitan is a prelate who is not only an archbishop with authority over an archdiocese, but also the metropolitan of a province, with authority over other bishops. Archbishop Vigneron is metropolitan of the Church’s Province of Michigan, which includes all seven Catholic dioceses in the state.
“I think it’s a very moving, very exciting event. There are archbishops there from around the world, so it’s a very profound experience of the Universal Church,” said Msgr. Patrick Halfpenny, who was in Rome last year to see his longtime friend Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis – a former Detroit priest and auxiliary bishop – receive his.
From lamb to shepherd
- Each Jan. 21, young lambs are blessed in a formal ceremony at the Basilica of St. Agnes – a fourth-century Roman martyr – and by the pope at the Vatican.
- The lambs are raised by Trappist monks who live near Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
- The lambs are delivered to the Benedictine nuns and shorn as Holy Week approaches.
- The nuns used to spin the fleece into wool yarn and weave the cloth and make the pallia. With their numbers reduced, the nuns now commission a textile company to supply the unfinished wool strips.
- On June 28, the pope blesses the pallia and they are placed overnight under the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in a 350-year-old silver chest which tourists often mistakenly think contains St. Peter’s bones.
- On June 29, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the pope bestows pallia to those named archbishop in the past year.
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“I’d describe it as a great moment of grace,” Msgr. Halfpenny, pastor of St. Paul on the Lake Parish in Grosse Pointe Farms. He will also be among those who will be traveling to Rome to attend this year’s pallium Mass.
Some of those who will be there are going as part of a pilgrimage that will also include tours of historic churches and a side trip to Assisi. Among them will be Patty Maxwell, the archbishop’s sister, and several other members of his family.
“This will be the first time I’ve been to Rome, so I’m very excited. It’s a great joy to go to Rome to see him receive the pallium from the pope,” she said.
Maxwell, a member of Holy Trinity Parish in Port Huron, said she also looked forward to seeing the North American College in Rome, the house of formation where her brother lived when he was a seminarian in Rome – and from which he wrote many letters home.
She noted that her brother Gary would also be going, along with his wife and two sons, and that her brother Rob’s wife and daughter would also be on the trip. She added that her only regret was that her mother and father could not go because of ill health.
“I did go out to Oakland (California) when Allen was installed (as bishop) there, and again when they dedicated the new cathedral, but I really haven’t traveled much. I feel like the little country mouse in all this. But my boss’s wife, Brenda Favero, is going too, and she’ll get me through this,” Maxwell added.
Barbara Middleton, director of the Holy Trinity Apostolate, will also be on the pilgrimage.
“I went out to Oakland when he was installed, and I want to be there when he receives the pallium from the Holy Father,” said Middleton, a member of SS. Cyril & Methodius (Slovak) Parish in Sterling Heights.
Recently, Archbishop Vigneron reminisced about his seminary days in Rome and the time he saw the saw the lambs being blessed. He said he had no idea at the time he would one day receive one.
“The lambs from whom the wool is taken are blessed on the feast of St. Agnes, at the tomb of St. Agnes outside the walls of the old city of Rome. Actually, when I was a seminarian I was at that blessing. It’s really a very interesting element of folk devotion.
See it
CTND, the Catholic Television Network of Detroit, will broadcast the Solemn Mass of SS. Peter and Paul, along with the imposition of the pallium live from St. Peter's Basilica. Monday, June 29, at 3:30 a.m., with repeats at 11:30 a.m.; Tuesday, June 30, at 1 p.m.; Saturday, July 4, at 8 p.m.; Wednesday, July 8, at 4 p.m. and Friday, July 10, at noon |
“They have two wicker baskets, and they have these very young lambs that are sitting in these baskets, and then they have linen strips, making a kind of a net – a very wide net – to make sure the lambs stay seated,” he recounted.
“And on one lamb, they have a crown of red rosebuds, and on the other lamb a crown of white rosebuds. And during that Mass, during the offertory procession, the lambs are brought in on a kind of a litter, men carrying them on a platform. As soon as they come into the church, the lambs, you can hear, are bleating. So they’re brought in, and the cardinal in charge of that church blesses the lambs, and they’re taken, then, over to the Vatican to be presented to the pope,” Archbishop Vigneron said.
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