Pallium Primer 2013: Francis' First Class

It's time to revisit what's become a tradition of this blog, a profile of the U.S. bishops headed to Rome this June 29 for the annual Pallium Mass. As many of you know, the pallium is a wool band worn over the vestments of an archbishop at Mass. Every year on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the pope presents a pallium to each of the bishops. We delved into the significance and symbolism of the pallium in our first blog post on this subject, two years ago.

As was the case then and last year, it's worth noting that, even when a bishop is already an archbishop, he receives the pallium again when he moved to a new metropolitan see (i.e. archdiocese). In the United States, this has occurred in the last five years with Cardinal Timothy Dolan (Milwaukee to New York), Archbishop José Gomez (San Antonio to Los Angeles) and Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap. (Denver to Philadelphia).

As has also been the case the past two years, this year's class has four members, alphabetically:

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone

Archbishop of San Francisco

Age 57
Ordained a priest July 9, 1982
Ordained a bishop August 21, 2002
Auxiliary bishop of San Diego, 2002-2009
Bishop of Oakland, 2009-2012

Archbishop Cordileone is currently chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee on the Promotion and Defense of Marriage. San Francisco has currently four living archbishops, a distinction held by the Archdiocese of New Orleans from 2009-2011. Archbishop Cordileone's three living predecessors are Archbishop John R. Quinn (archbishop of San Francisco from 1977-1995), Cardinal William Levada (1995-2005, and prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, 2005-2012) and Archbishop George Niederauer (2005-2012).

Archbishop Michael Jackels
Archbishop of Dubuque, Iowa

Age 59
Ordained a priest May 30, 1981
Ordained a bishop April 4, 2005
Bishop of Wichita, Kansas 2005-2013

Archbishop Jackels succeeded Archbishop Jerome Hanus, OSB, who retired early for reasons of health, on April 8.

Archbishop Alexander Sample
Archbishop of Portland, Oregon

Age 52
Ordained a priest June 1, 1990
Ordained a bishop January 25, 2006
Bishop of Marquette, Michigan 2006-2013

Archbishop Sample was the youngest bishop in the country at the time of his 2006 appointment to Marquette. He was also an early adopter of Twitter among the U.S. bishops.

Archbishop Joseph Tobin, CSSR
Archbishop of Indianapolis

Age 61
Ordained a priest June 1, 1978
Ordained a bishop October 9, 2010
Secretary of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, 2010-2012

Archbishop Tobin joined the Redemptorist order in 1973 and served as its superior general from 1997-2009. He then served as the second-in-command in the Vatican's congregation overseeing religious life until his 2012 appointment to Indianapolis.

(Photo of Archbishop Tobin a CNS photo by Sean Gallagher of The Criterion, Indianapolis)