During Pope Benedict XVI‘s first papal visit to the United States, this symbol appears on everything from the programs for his services to the sash tied around his waist. Each pope creates his own coat of arms, offering clues to the direction he will take the church. This pope, who as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was the Vatican’s chief theologian, is by temperament and training an intellectual, and the intricate and ambiguous imagery on his coat of arms suggests a papal mission more scholarly, more obstinate and ultimately more complex than that of his predecessor.
Though seen as deeply conservative in his approach to Catholicism, Pope Benedict overturns a number of traditions in his coat of arms. One of them is the centuries-old practice of displaying the papal tiara, which here is replaced by the more modest bishop’s mitre. The mitre is accompanied by another novelty: a pallium, the white sash bedecked with crosses hanging beneath the shield. Together they signal a modest, even bureaucratic papacy, characterized by a reliance on doctrine rather than the worldly charisma of Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II.
The Moor’s head is one of the most mysterious symbols in heraldry. For centuries, it has been an emblem of the German diocese of Munich and Freising, the spiritual home of Joseph Ratzinger. Benedict has also called the head his reminder of the global diversity of the Catholic faith. Whatever its intention, a caricature of a black man is a disturbing symbol in today’s world. “The truth is, no one really knows what it means,” says the Rev. James Weiss, who teaches church history at Boston College.
The crossed keys – one of silver, one of gold – representing power in temporal and spiritual realms, have appeared in one form or another in papal coats of arms for centuries. Throughout the papal visit, there will be reminders of who holds the keys to the faith.
The bear is a symbol of St. Corbinian, who according to legend was threatened by a bear that he made obey and repent by carrying his books. In “Milestones: Memoirs,” the 1977 autobiography he wrote while still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict likened himself to Corbinian’s bear in Rome – a creature out of place in the holy city, bearing the burden of his faith at his God’s command.
Benedict explains the scallop shell as an allusion to St. Augustine’s story about a child on the beach trying to scoop the sea, one shell’s worth at a time, into a hole he has dug in the sand. To Augustine, this was an image of trying to comprehend divine infinitude within the finite space of the human mind. The shell has long been a symbol of pilgrimage, as well; as with the bear, this would seem to signify a pope who sees himself as a wanderer in the material world. Weiss, who lived in Bavaria during Ratzinger’s episcopate and served Mass for him, agrees that these images bespeak not only Benedict’s commitment to disquieting traditions, but also his sense of discomfort with rising secularism.
Matthew Battles is the author of “Library: An Unquiet History.”