Archbishop Nolan has received the pallium from Pope Francis at a Mass  in Rome for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome. The pallium – a small band of white woven from the wool of lambs blessed on the feast of St Agnes – is worn by Metropolitan Archbishops as a sign of their authority and their bond to the Holy Father.

More than 40 new archbishops from around the world received the pallium from the Holy Father. It will be placed over the shoulders of the new Archbishop by the Papal Nuncio later this year.

In his homily the Pope urged the new Archbishops to show mercy and care for their people. He posed two questions for modern Christians. First, he said, we must ask “What can I do for the Church?” He warned against complaining about the Church and invited lay people to participate in the Church’s work with passion and humility. This, he said, “is what a synodal Church means: everyone has a part to play, no individual in the place of others or above others.”

Then, “What can we do together, as Church, to make the world in which we live more humane, just, and solidary, more open to God and to fraternity among men?”

This does not mean – the Pope said - retreating into “ecclesial circles,” trapped in fruitless debates, or living nostalgically, but instead, “helping one another to be leaven in the dough of the world.”

“In a word, we are called to be a Church that promotes the culture of care and compassion towards the vulnerable.”

The Church, he said, is called to “fight all forms of corruption and decay… so that in the life of every people the joy of the Gospel may shine forth.” This, he said, is our “good fight.”