Coat of Arms Cardinal Wuerl

The Coat of Arms of His Eminence

DONALD CARDINAL WUERL

Archbishop Emeritus of Washington

Blazon (heraldic description):

Gules, a tower or charged with a cross alisé of the field.

Significance

The personal arms of Cardinal Wuerl show a red field charged with a gold tower, upon which in turn is a red globical cross.  The tower stands for the City of God, as well as for titles of the Blessed Virgin Mary as found in the Litany of Loreto: Tower of David, Tower of Ivory and House of Gold. The cross is from the coat of arms of the Diocese of Pittsburgh (changed from gold to red), of which Cardinal Wuerl is a native, and of which he was Bishop before he became Archbishop of Washington.

Behind the arms is placed a gold double-traversed processional cross, symbolic of the archiepiscopal or metropolitan rank. Over the whole achievement is a cardinal’s hat, scarlet in color, with fifteen scarlet tassels on each side arranged in five rows, one more row than appear on an archbishop’s hat, and two more than on that of a bishop.

The motto THY KINGDOM COME is taken from Saint Matthew’s recollection of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:10), and represents Cardinal Wuerl’s commitment to the Church’s conviction that the personal effort of each believer actually builds up in our lifetime the kingdom of God.

Cardinal Wuerl’s arms were devised in 1986, when he was ordained as a bishop, by Professor Géza Grosschmid (1918-1992) of Duquesne University. The present emblazonment was drawn by Georgina Wilkinson of the Archdiocese of Washington.