Bishop Olson of Fort Worth

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On January 29 the Most Rev. Michael Fors Olson will be ordained and installed as the fourth bishop of Fort Worth, Texas. His personal arms depict a symbol for the Holy Trinity as an allusion to Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, Texas where the bishop served as Rector. Below the sword and pan balance is symbolic of his baptismal patron, St. Michael. The blue fess in the center bears the spikenard flower taken from the arms of Pope Francis as well as two yellow roses (a allusion to Texas) representing Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Thérèse the “Little Flower”. The motto means “The Splendor of the Truth”. The coat of arms of Bishop Olson were designed and marshaled to those of the diocese by Deacon Paul Sullivan.

4 thoughts on “Bishop Olson of Fort Worth

    1. guyselvester Post author

      That’s a tad harsh. I think these arms would be better either without the fess or by placing what is on the fess on a chief and ditching the Trinity symbol but all in all it’s not a bad coat of arms.

      Reply
      1. Hans van Heijningen

        I think the problem of the Deacon is that his shields are often a bit overcrowded. But that is perhaps more a problem of the bishop-principals. They give the designer a lot of ‘wishes’ to refer to this or that. Then you cannot blame the designer. I myself as a designer saw it often as a battle to make a shield simple with also respect for the bishops wishes.

        By the way: another problem for church-heraldists is that the dioceses often don’t put the bishops crests or their websites. And when a heraldist mails to ask, he does not get answer at all.
        Not published new crests from the last months are f.i. Sis (San Angelo) and Mgr. Kettler (transferred from Fairbanks to Saint-Cloud in 2013). And more dioceses never published bishops crest. A pity for heraldic researchers.

  1. Daniel Romero

    The Diocese of San Angelo just recently posted the significance of Bishop Michael Sis’ coat of arms to their website. There are two versions shown, one of his personal arms and the other showing his personal arms joined to the diocesan arms. It appears from the style that Deacon Paul Sullivan was the heraldist who designed Bishop Sis’ coat of arms. The link for the significance of Archbishop Leonard Blair of Hartford’s coat of arms doesn’t work on the archdiocesan website. However, there is a fairly decent picture of what it looks like on his Archived Monthly Columns webpage. Unfortunately, the Diocese of St. Cloud still has not posted Bishop Donald Kettler’s new coat of arms.

    Reply

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