New bishop of Metuchen, James F. Checchio, is consecrated and installed today. These are his arms:
http://i67.tinypic.com/1085rw0.png
They are impaled with those of Metuchen.
The rationale for his personal arms runs — as ecclesiastical arms are wont to do — into a special kind of theological purple prose, but the design is simple and pleasing, I think. (Some fun parts from the official explanation: "[azure is] the color which symbolizes the separation from the worldly values and the ascent of the soul toward God, therefore the run of the celestial virtues which raise themselves from the things of the earth toward the sky." And the chevron apparently represents the rafters of a church.) As for the charges, the sheep debruised by a crozier is meant as a nod to his seminary work ("forming priests according to the model of the Good Shepherd"), and the shell and crescent are symbols of St. James and his home diocese of Camden, respectively. The crescent also has the happy coincidence of being a major element of the North American College’s arms, where he was rector for 10 years.
A humorous note about the crozier debruising the sheep — sure, it’s a technical heraldic term, but it doesn’t seem very nice printed in a program, "debruising"... as if the pastor weren’t averse to physical punishment to keep the flock in line!
I’m curious to hear what Fr. Selvester has to say about this design, seeing as how these are the arms of his new bishop.
P.S. — As for the artwork, I’ve got to say I’m a tad disappointed, since it’s evident that the artist’s interpretation of the arms of the diocese, at least, was directly copied from the vector version available on Wikimedia Commons:
Not that I’m offended by that design per se (since… well, since I was the one that vectorized it and uploaded it to Commons, actually), but not providing an original emblazonment is less than ideal… less than professional, to be frank.
Are you the one responsible for all those Wiki common diocesan arms, Alek?
Dcgb7f;105964 wrote:
Are you the one responsible for all those Wiki common diocesan arms, Alek?
Most of them. I used them as a project to self-learn SVG drawing, so some of them turned out pretty well, and I think others still leave a bit to be desired.