Pallium

The pallium is an official badge of the pope, he gives regularly to the metropolitans of the Latin Church. Today, it is a ring-shaped, about 5 to 15 cm wide band, a kind of stole, and is worn over the chasuble. Usually six black silk crosses are embroidered in a pallium.

Origins and history

By the 3rd century the pallium was part of the clothing high Roman official. After the recognition of Christianity as the state religion in 380, it was also awarded to the high clergy ( Patriarch ). In the Eastern churches it is called omophorion and heard there at the usual official costume of bishops. Since the 7th century ceremonies of the pallium by the pope to individual archbishops of the Western Church have survived. So Pope Sergius I. the Fries missionary Willibrord the pallium presented at his consecration on 21 November 695 as a sign of his new dignity.

Production and blessing

The pallium is made from the wool of two lambs of the Pope in the previous year on the day of St. Agnes ( 21 January) were blessed. Because the wool is no longer sufficient for all newly appointed metropolitans today, other wool is added. Be spun and woven the pallium of living in strict cloistered nuns of the convent of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. On the eve of the Solemnity of Peter and Paul, the new pallia are kept in the Confession of St. Peter's, the grave of St. Peter under the main altar in a golden container, thereby acting as a contact relic. Your storage gives this place the name Palliennische. Falsely the golden casket in which the pallium are kept, often mistaken for the reliquary of the bones of St. Peter. In the ends of the pallium lead pieces are sewn for loading. Three of embroidered crosses can be pierced with needles, symbolizing the three cross nails. Formerly these needles were used for fixation of the pallium on the chasuble.

Meaning and legal assessment

The pallium was considered a sign of participation of the metropolitans of the pastoral authority of the Pope ( in partem sollicitudinis ), which it as the insignia of his full power ( plenitudo potestatis ) entitled per se. The pallium are on the Solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul ( June 29 ) awarded in Rome. The ceremonial handover is connected to a loyalty oath of the Metropolitan to the Pope and his successors. The canon law of the Latin Church determined that " a Metropolitan is required to request the pallium within three months after receipt of the episcopal ordination or, if he is already consecrated, according to the canonical transmission of office, in person or by a representative from the Pope, the fact sign of the force is with which the Metropolitan is equipped in communion with the Roman Church in their own province by law. " Thus, it is now regarded as a sign of his office 's authority as Pastor of the Metropolitan Church in communion with the Pope in Rome. He may wear only in the churches of his ecclesiastical province of it, though. In the early and high Middle Ages the wearing of the pallium was limited to a few days a year. During the 11th century were the days on which the archbishop was allowed to use this insignia, multiplied by papal Pallienprivilegien.

The pope can be used anywhere where it projects a Eucharistic celebration, use of the pallium. The presentation of the pallium is the only occasion on which you can see clothed at the same time and in the same place several archbishops with a pallium - apart from papal visits, where it has become customary for the Metropolitan, dwells in the ecclesiastical province of the Pope, this also applies. After the older law of the Latin Church, it was not allowed to wear a pallium in the presence of the Pope.

The pallium is not transferable and is therefore buried with the late archbishop. Moves a Metropolitan to another metropolitan see, he needs a new pallium. At the funeral, the pallium, which he first received, deposited folded under his neck, while he gets the one he last received, created according to the usual carry.

Case, the pallium is also awarded non- metropolitan. So Angelo Sodano received as dean of the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI. the pallium, as well as the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, dean of Pope John Paul II

Current papal use

In the course of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, there were efforts to renew the time stunted form of the pallium. Pope John Paul II wore a short period (1999/2000) a pallium of the long type, as shown in the figure above for Archbishop Peter Aspelt of Mainz. For reasons of its weight and, especially for a old diffracted beam, unfavorable section it was not retained. The situation changed with the inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI. He wore in the first years of his pontificate a pallium ( with five red crosses ) of the original type and carry, not, as usual in the last few centuries, shortened and narrowed ending in Y shape on the chest and back, but and as in Late Antiquity early Middle Ages, formed in the ends of the V- shaped collar over the left shoulder hanging ( see illustration by Innocent III. ). They interpreted this as a step towards the separated churches of Orthodoxy who know the omophorion in a similar form. A corresponding change of the pallium of the metropolitans was talking.

Since the Solemnity of Peter and Paul in 2008 was Pope Benedict XVI. a new pallium, which was not designed according to the shape of its predecessor as well as the pallium of the archbishops. It looks similar to the flat adjacent pallium from the time of the Tridentine reform ( 16-17. Century). This step was taken for reasons clearly visible continuity and because of the inconvenient mode of wearing " intermediate form ", the papal master of ceremonies Guido Marini in an interview. The pallium of the Pope since Benedict XVI. larger and wider than that of the archbishops and embroidered with six black crosses instead of red. Meanwhile, the Pope Benedict XVI was mosaic. changed according to St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The pallium, the Pope Francis was turned over to the inauguration on March 19, 2013 by the cardinal deacon Jean -Louis Tauran, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi loud was the same pallium, which already Benedict XVI. had worn. This pallium is woven around a Roman pallium with 6 red crosses on the white sheep wool fabric about 9 cm wide and is a reminder of the Good Shepherd carrying the lost lamb on his shoulders.