The coat of arms of Archbishop John Francis Donoghue, D.D., joins elements of his personal arms with the coat of arms of the Atlanta archdiocese. The new coat of arms is a visual representation linking the Atlanta archdiocese with personal aspects of the archbishop's life. By combining the personal arms on the same shield with those of the archdiocese the spiritual unity of the archbishop with his flock is signified.

The coat of arms is a means of identification. In this case it identifies the institution of the archdiocese with its fifth archbishop. Its design will be used as the official seal of the diocese which is affixed to legal and other documents.

The shield is divided in half vertically. The dexter, or right side of the arms, as viewed by one who is wearing the shield and bearing it on his arm, remains the same from bishop to bishop. Its significance comes from symbols which uniquely represent the Archdiocese of Atlanta. The sinister, or left side, as viewed by the one bearing the shield, contains symbols representing the individual archbishop.

On the dexter for the archdiocese are three blue wavy bars which divide the shield into seven alternate wavy spaces of white and blue. In the center of the shield is an open gold crown and above on the upper wavy bar is a Cherokee rose.

The seven white and blue wavy bars are the heraldic equivalent of the sea and represent Atlanta, which is the See City and is indirectly named after the Atlantic Ocean. The seven bars also recall the seven sacraments administered in the archdiocese. Blue and white are the colors of the Blessed Mother. The wavy aspect of the bars can also be said to symbolize the rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge country of North Georgia.

The open gold crown represents the crown of Christ the King, the title of the cathedral Church of the diocese. The crown may also have a secondary representation commemorating King George II of England, after whom the state of Georgia was named. On the upper wavy blue bar is a Cherokee Rose, a white flower with a yellow center, which is the state flower of Georgia.

The sinister impalement, on the right of the viewer, displays the personal arms of Archbishop Donoghue. The personal arms of Archbishop Donoghue consist of a field, or surface quartered green and red. The quartering is found in the arms of the Archdiocese of Washington, and commemorates Archbishop Donoghue's priestly ministry in the archdiocese. The green and red are the surface colors of the arms of the Irish septs of O'Donoghue and Ryan, and honor the archbishop's paternal and maternal ancestry.

The central charge of the arms is a silver (white) cross with its limbs terminating in fleur-de-lis. This cross flory honors Archbishop Donoghue's baptismal patron, Saint John Vianney (1786-1859). The fleur-de-lis has long been a symbol of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and here joined to the cross, alludes to the archbishop's Pauline motto and his devotion to Christ's Mother. The chief portion of the shield is ermine (white with black ermine tails) and commemorates Archbishop Donoghue's long association with Cardinal Patrick O'Boyle, second archbishop of Washington, whose arms bore an ermine chief.

The motto, "To Live in Christ Jesus" has been slightly adapted from Saint Paul's Letter to the Philippians 1:21.

In pale behind the arms is placed a gold archiepiscopal cross with a double traverse. A pontifical hat with then tassels on each side disposed in four rows, all in green, surrounds the shield ensigning the whole achievement. These are the heraldic insignia of a prelate of the rank of archbishop. Before 1870 the pontifical hat was worn at solemn cavalcades held in conjunction with papal ceremonies. The color of the hat and the number of tassels were signs of the rank of a prelate, a custom still preserved in ecclesiastical heraldry.

The impalement of the personal arms of Archbishop Donoghue with those of the archdiocese of Atlanta was undertaken by A.W.C. Phelps, a member of The Heraldry Society, London, England, and resident of Cleveland, Ohio, in July 1993. The arms of the Archdiocese of Atlanta were devised in 1956 by the late William F.J. Ryan, New York, NY, and West Chatham, Mass.