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Salvatore Matano will be installed today as the ninth bishop of Rochester, New York succeeding Bishop matthew Clark who has served there for the last thirty four years. Rochester is also the diocese where the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen served as diocesan bishop briefly before being promoted to titular archbishop of Newport.
The description of the bishop’s coat of arms (taken from material provided by the diocese) is as follows:
“On a blue field is a silver moline cross taken from the heraldry of the bishop’s native diocese of Providence, Rhode Island; a golden star with seven points simultaneously recalls the Divine institution of the Seven Sacraments and the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. The liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows is observed on the 15th day of September, the day of Bishop Matano’s birth. In base are seven silver hills on which the Eternal City of Rome – the city of the Bishop’s priestly formation and graduate education – and the City of Providence – the city of the Bishop’s birth and preliminary education – are said to be built. The blue background symbolizes the ascent of the human soul towards God, with whom each of us was created to dwell in unapproachable light.”
The personal arms are those he assumed when he became a bishop in 2005.
These are excellent!
Ditto - excellent!—and doubly so in that he has kept his original personal arms while moving from one ecclesiastical charge to another.
The diocesan arms are also very nice, both in heraldic simplicity - should impale nicely with future bishops -and in the ease of rendering correctly by artists/carvers/seamstresses/cake decorators etc. both professional and amateur.
Nice but the diocesean Arms seems to have been somewhat altered. The Crescent having been surrounded by a Lozenge.
Marcus K;101252 wrote:
Nice but the diocesean Arms seems to have been somewhat altered. The Crescent having been surrounded by a Lozenge.
Yes, which is a shame because the original was designed by Pierre Chaignon de la Rose. The only difference between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester in New York and the ancient diocese’s arms in England was the exchange of a scallop for a crescent (for the Immaculate Conception). No idea where the lozenge came from, but it must have been fairly recent. Here is a scan of some 2010 letterhead from the Bishop’s office. No lozenge.
