Archbishop Cupich to receive pallium Sunday

Friday, August 21, 2015
Pallium presented to Cupich at Holy Name
On Sunday, Archbishop Blase Cupich will put on the pallium given to him by Pope Francis earlier this summer.

CHICAGO (WLS) -- On Sunday, Archbishop Blase Cupich will put on the pallium given to him by Pope Francis earlier this summer.

In June, new Roman Catholic leaders from around the world traveled to Rome for a majestic ceremony in St Peter's Basilica. They were there to receive a wool garment called a pallium, a cloth worn to signify their leadership and unity with the pope.

In the past, the pope himself would personally place the pallium on a new archbishop's shoulders during the mass in Rome, but Pope Francis changed that procedure. Instead, he handed the new archbishops their palliums and asked that they formally receive and wear them for the first time back at their home cathedrals so that Catholics there would be connected.

Archbishop will put on the pallium at a ceremony at Holy Name Cathedral.

"And as he gave it to me, he said now I told you to tell the people and you too, to pray for me and we were just across from the mosaic inscription on ceiling Jesus is saying I have prayed for you peter. So I said, I will pray for you, but remember Jesus is praying for you too. And he laughed. He liked that. He said yes, your right," Archbishop Cupich said in June.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigan, the papal nuncio, will place the pallium on the shoulders of Archbishop Cupich on Sunday. Vigano is the pope's ambassador to the U.S.

Archbishop Cupich will have the opportunity to speak again personally with Pope Francis when he arrives in Washington, D.C. at the end of September.