Coat of Arms Cardinal Gregory

The Coat of Arms of His Eminence

WILTON CARDINAL GREGORY

Archbishop Emeritus of Washington

Blazon (heraldic description):

Argent, on a cross gules a cross sable fimbriated vert; 1, a raven proper; 2, a bear rampant of the third; 3, a fleur-de-lis of the second; 4, a phoenix or issuant from flames of the second.

Significance

The personal arms of Cardinal Gregory, adopted when he was appointed as Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago and used by him as Bishop of Belleville and as Archbishop of Atlanta show on a silver (white) field a black cross, edged in green, over a red cross. These colors are known as the African-American colors, and by their use on the cross Cardinal Gregory honors the religious and racial heritage that has come to him from his parents, Wilton and Ethel (Duncan) Gregory.

In the first quarter is a raven, to honor the Cardinal’s Benedictine education at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute Sant’ Anselmo in Rome. The black bear in the second quarter is taken from the arms of His Eminence, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, his principal episcopal consecrator. The fleur-de-lis in the third quarter, here in red, is taken from the arms of the Mundelein Seminary in Chicago, where Cardinal Gregory was both a student and faculty member. In the fourth quarter a golden phoenix coming forth from red flames honors the City of Chicago, reborn after the Great Fire of 1871.

Behind the arms is placed a gold double-traversed cross, symbolic of the archiepiscopal rank. Over the whole achievement is a cardinal’s hat, or galero, with fifteen tassels pendent on each side in five rows, all in cardinalatial red.

For his motto, Cardinal Gregory has “We are the Lord’s,” taken from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, which expresses his deep Christian belief: “For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14: 8).

Cardinal Gregory’s personal arms were devised by Deacon Paul J. Sullivan (1947-2019) of the Diocese of Providence. The present emblazonment was drawn by Georgina Wilkinson of the Archdiocese of Washington.