Archbishop Vásquez receives pallium from Pope Leo

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Pope Leo XIV gave newly appointed metropolitan archbishops their pallium on the June 29 feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, he told them it symbolizes their responsibility to care for their people and to promote unity.

Kneeling before the Holy Father at the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica, Archbishop Joe S. Vásquez was among the 54 archbishops from around the world who received a pallium, a circular woolen band worn around the shoulders over Mass vestments that marks their position as a metropolitan archbishop. 

Appointed Archbishop of Galveston-Houston in January 2025, Archbishop Vásquez joined Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza and Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, who each also received their palliums in 2005 and 2006, respectively, after the diocese was named an Archdiocese in 2004. 

In his homily, Pope Leo told Archbishop Vásquez, who was joined by seven other U.S. archbishops at the Mass, “Dear brothers, this sign of the pastoral responsibility entrusted to you also expresses your communion with the Bishop of Rome, so that in the unity of the Catholic faith, each of you may build up that communion in your local churches,” he said in his homily during Mass. 

He urged them to “learn to experience communion in this way — as unity within diversity — so that the various gifts, united in the one confession of faith, may advance the preaching of the Gospel.”