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July 31, 2020
It is an honour for an archbishop to receive a pallium from the Pope. On July 31st, Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., added a third one to his collection!
Pope Francis’ representative, the Most Rev. Luigi Bonazzi, Apostolic Nuncio to Canada, placed the pallium on Archbishop Prendergast’s shoulders in a bilingual ceremony at Notre-Dame Cathedral.
July 31st was the Feast of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a founder of the order to which Archbishop Prendergast belongs, the Society of Jesus, popularly referred to as the Jesuits.
The imposition of a pallium—the Latin word for cloak or mantle—on a metropolitan archbishop is an ancient Catholic practice that, this year, takes a few novel turns. Tradition has it that the pallium dates to the fourth century when Pope Marcus conferred the woollen bands upon the bishop of Ostia as a symbol of his special role in consecrating a new pope. The pallium is conferred on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. An archbishop wears it over his shoulders, reminding him and others that he is called to gently carry his sheep. To emphasize that relationship with the flock, Pope Francis decided in 2015 that while the new archbishops would join him at the Mass for the blessing of the pallia, the woollen bands would be placed on their shoulders in their home archdioceses.
This year, the pandemic prevented most qualifying archbishops, including Archbishop Prendergast, from attending the recent blessing of the pallia in Rome. He did, however, attend two others: in 1999 when, as Archbishop of Halifax, he received the pallium from Pope John Paul II, and in 2007, when, as Archbishop of Ottawa, he received it from now-retired Pope Benedict XVI.
If an archbishop moves from one archdiocese to another, he gets a new pallium. Although Archbishop Prendergast has not technically moved again, he was named Archbishop of the newly created Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall, thus the third pallium. He commented that he has received three pallia for three archdioceses from three popes.