FOR Archbishop Mark Coleridge, the pallium he received from the hands of Pope Benedict on June 29 was a reminder from Jesus to “feed my lambs, feed my sheep”.
He received the pallium in St Peter’s Basilica and it marked the final stage of Archbishop Coleridge’s commissioning in Brisbane archdiocese.
“The pallium itself is a very simple thing, ” Archbishop Coleridge said.
“It’s a band of white lamb’s wool with a few black crosses on it and all the Pope does is put it around my neck.
“The gesture is very simple and the thing itself is very simple, but the symbolism is profound and it speaks to the very heart of the Christian mystery.”
The pallium, a liturgical vestment worn by the Pope and bestowed upon metropolitan archbishops, signifies the pastoral responsibility and union with the Holy Father.
It “speaks of the communion which only Jesus can bring about and the prime guardian of communion is the bishop of Rome, Peter”, Archbishop Coleridge said.
“Jesus entrusted the Church to Peter, ‘you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church’ and as St Paul says of Moses and his people, ‘they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ’ so for us the Petrine office ultimately places us in union with Christ,” he said.
“Jesus keeps saying ‘feed my lambs, feed my sheep’ to Peter, but also to me as a bishop, and that’s what the pallium means.
“The pallium means that I, as the Archbishop of Brisbane, am profoundly in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.
“But it’s not just about me as the Archbishop of Brisbane, it’s also about the See of Brisbane.
“Just as the See of Brisbane is profoundly in communion with the Bishop of Peter, so am I with the See of Peter, and this is a communion that only the encounter with the risen Christ can bring about.”
Archbishop Coleridge said this mystery of communion was also symbolised in the examples of Saints Peter and Paul, a thought reiterated by the Holy Father in his homily.
“Together they represent the whole Gospel of Christ… (and) illustrate a new way of being brothers, lived according to the Gospel, an authentic way made possible by Christ’s Gospel working within them. Only by following Jesus does one arrive at this new brotherhood,” Pope Benedict said.
Archbishop Coleridge was one of 43 archbishops to receive the pallium along with a fellow Australian, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth.
About 30 Brisbane Catholics, including former Archbishop Emeritus John Bathersby, joined Archbishop Coleridge on the pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi.
Archbishop Coleridge also said Catholics had a clarion call to follow St Peter and St Paul in their martyrdom.
“If we look at the original meaning of the word, we see that it means witness. And so in that sense we are all called to be martyrs, to be witnesses of the faith,” he said.
“After my first two months in Brisbane, I feel energised.
“I have been so warmly welcomed by the people of Brisbane and it’s a place of such potential.
“Sometimes I wish I was taking this on as a fifty-three year old, instead of at sixty-three.
“But I have twelve years and I still have plenty of energy, so I will give my all to Brisbane. I will try and be a martyr for the people of Brisbane.”
A feature of the Archbishop’s first two months in Brisbane has been his desire for Brisbane Catholics to become more missionary and evangelical in vision and not to “circle the wagons”.
This requires a constant renewal of faith as a community, it first and foremost requires the renewal of individual faith.
Archbishop Coleridge suggested one of the first steps had to be a renewal in “our faith in Peter and in the Church. An excellent place to start is the Apostles’ Creed. Often if we look a little deeper the things that seem strange or difficult to us about the Catholic Church, we find them to be eminently sensible.”
“As one who worked here (in Rome), and seeing the Petrine ministry close up, I think the closer you see it from day to day, the more mysterious the Petrine ministry becomes,” he said.
“There is something seriously mysterious about the kind of communion celebrated by the Pope’s simple act of putting a woolen band around my neck.”
“The pallium that I have conferred on you,” Pope Benedict XVI said to the bishops “will always remind you that you have been constituted in and for the great mystery of communion that is the Church, the spiritual edifice built upon Christ as the cornerstone, while in its earthly and historical dimension, it is built on the rock of Peter.”
“Inspired by this conviction, we know that together we are all cooperators of the truth, which as we know is one and ‘symphonic’, and requires from each of us and from our communities a constant commitment to conversion to the one Lord in the grace of the one Spirit.”
Archbishop Coleridge said the pallium was a reminder of his responsibilities as the Archbishop of Brisbane, but also a reminder of much deeper realities, just as his pectoral cross was.
“Every time I put on my pallium I will be reminded of the union with Peter and the necessity of truly living it,” he said.
