Heraldry hobbyist creates cardinal's coat of arms

Published: 2006-07-25

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Every kid's got a hobby. For some it's sports, or collecting stamps. For George Cannizzaro, it started out as a fascination with flags -- the colors, the symbolism, the emblems. "I've had an interest in flags for as long as I can remember," said Cannizzaro, 25, who is studying at Loyola University in Chicago and is in priestly formation with the Society of Jesus. That fascination would lead him, ultimately, to a most unexpected honor: designing the coat of arms for the newly installed French Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, a Jesuit and former rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, this past March. The design, picked from among three of Cannizzaro's submissions, incorporated the Jesuit sun-and-splendor symbol and an open book, representing the Bible and the cardinal's church career in exegesis. It also included the galero, the fanciful red hat with tassels that signifies a cardinal. As a Jesuit, Cannizzaro is in his first year of first studies, a three-year period of intense work in philosophy.

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