Francis’ first – bring out the pallia

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the Stone and the Apostle, and, as always, the Church invests the newly appointed metropolitan archbishops with the sign of their office and authority: the pallium. This year 34 archbishops have travelled to Rome to receive their white band of lamb’s wool, while a 35th, Vietnamese Archbishop Le Van Hong, will receive his at home.

In alphabetical order they are:

1. Archbishop Antonio Carlos Altieri, S.D.B., of Passo Fundo, Brazil
2. Archbishop George Antonysamy of Madras and Mylapore, India
3. Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera Lopez of Monterrey, Mexico
4. Archbishop Sérgio Eduardo Castriani, C.S.Sp., of Manaus, Brazil
5. Archbishop Murray Chatlain of Keewatin-Le Pas, Canada
6. Archbishop Peter Loy Chong of Suva, Fiji
7. Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone of San Francisco, USA
8. Archbishop Alfonso Cortes Contreras of Leon, Mexico
9. Archbishop Anil Joseph Thomas Couto of Delhi, India
10. Archbishop Claudio Dalla Zuanna, S.C.I., of Beira, Mozambique
11. Archbishop Ramon Alfredo Dus of Resistencia, Argentina
12. Archbishop Joseph Effiong Ekuwem of Calabar, Nigeria
13. Archbishop Carlos Maria Franzini of Mendoza, Argentina
14. Archbishop Lorenzo Ghizzoni of Ravenna-Cervia, Italy
15. Archbishop Gintaras Linas Grusas of Vilnius, Lithuania
16. Archbishop Sergio Alfredo Gualberti Calandrina of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
17. Archbishop Duro Hranic of Dakovo-Osijek, Croatia
18. Archbishop Michael Owen Jackels of Dubuque, USA
19. Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski of Lodz, Poland
20. Archbishop Jesus Juarez Parraga, S.D.B., of Sucre, Bolivia
21. Archbishop Jozef Piotr Kupny of Wroclaw, Poland
22. Archbishop Francois Xavier Le Van Hong of Hue, Vietnam
23. Patriarch Manuel Jose Macario do Nascimento Clemente, patriarch of Lisbon, Portugal
24. Archbishop Prakash Mallavarapu of Visakhapatnam, India
25. Archbishop Fabio Martinez Castilla of Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico
26. Archbishop Dieudonne Nzapalainga, C.S.Sp., of Bangui, Central African Republic
27. Archbishop Giuseppe Petrocchi of L’Aquila, Italy
28. Archbishop Mario Aurelio Poli of Buenos Aires, Argentina
29. Archbishop Carlo Roberto Maria Redaelli of Gorizia, Italy
30. Archbishop Alexander King Sample of Portland in Oregon, USA
31. Archbishop Moacir Silva of Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
32. Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow, Great Britain
33. Archbishop Joseph William Tobin, C.Ss.R., of Indianapolis, USA
34. Archbishop Rolando Joven Tria Tirona, O.C.D., of Caceres, Philippines
35. Archbishop John Wong Soo Kau of Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Last year, the order of the liturgy was changed somewhat to remove any suggestion that the imposition of the pallia is a sacrament, and that change remains in effect. For Pope Francis this first feast of Sts. Peter and Paul as Pope will see him meeting several of his erstwhile brothers from the Argentine bishops’ conference, including his own successor in Buenos Aires, one of his very first appointments as Pope, Archbishop Mario Poli.

The full texts of the liturgy, which starts at 9:30 tomorrow morning, can be found here.