VATICAN CITY (Zenit): Personal elements and novelties characterise Pope Benedict XVI’s coat of arms (pictured).
The new coat of arms was published for the first time in the Italian edition of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano on April 28.
It has three personal elements — a shell, the “Moor of Freising” and “St Corbinian’s bear”.
There are also two novelties — the substitution of the mitre instead of the tiara, and the addition of the white pallium with black crosses draped below the shield.
For at least eight centuries, popes have had their own personal coat of arms.
The shield has symbols introduced by then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich and Freising, and later as cardinal, but the composition is new.
