On July 25, the Feast of St. James, Rev. Mons. Edward M. Lohse (61) a priest of the Diocese of Erie, PA since 1989 (and a man who was two years ahead of me at St. Vincent Seminary) is being ordained and installed as the Fifth Bishop of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The cross in chief is from the attributed arms of St. Edward the Confessor. The division line wavy is from the arms of the See of Erie and it represents the lakeshore where Erie lies. On the fess are symbols of the Jesuit Order and the Benedictine Order both of which profoundly influenced the bishop’s formation and spirituality. The base uses the blue and silver fusils from the arms of Wittelsbach and, by extension, of Bavaria to symbolize his family and faith, both of which have their origins in Bavaria.

The arms are simple, clear and contrast nicely with the somewhat unfortunate arms of the See of Kalamazoo. I think a better composition of the arms would have been to place the Bavarian fusils in chief with the wavy division line beneath them and then have blue field with the cross throughout and the two symbols of the orders in the first and fourth quarters. That’s merely an opinion, mind you, and in matters of taste there can be no real dispute. However, the pattern of fusils in bend looks better at the top of the shield where the eye is first naturally drawn. A solid chief with a patterned base makes a weak composition, in my opinion, because it looks top-heavy.

In addition, the essentially silver (white) backgrounds of both of the roundels placed on a silver fess looks washed out and weak. They would have contrasted better being on a blue field and “popped” a bit more. Also, the cross and lettering on the medal of St. Benedict should be black, rather than blue. I suppose the same could be asserted for the letters on the Jesuit symbol as well.

Overall, it is still a good design and Bishop Lohse certainly has a coat of arms that is better than many other US bishops. That’s not saying much, however, given the appallingly bad heraldry employed by most US bishops. Nevertheless, I think this is a decent coat of arms. My criticism is intended to convey only that it could have been a little better without changing any of the symbolism, but just arranging it better.