Chas Charles-Dunne wrote:Chris Green wrote:These are after all Roman Catholic clerics and should not be producing any children to whom they would pass down their arms.
Where does it say in the small print that one should only acquire arms in order to pass them on to one's children.
I have arms but no children. More importantly for the purposes of this thread, the Pope has arms but no children.
I do not understand your argument. Arms are inheritable; it is an intrinsic part of what arms are.
True, but it is only a part. Arms are inheritable as long as there is someone to inherit them. If there are no offspring then the arms aren't inheritable. What is primary for a coat of arms is that it be a distinguishing mark of identification. Clerics make use of arms as a means of identification that is unique to them. It is more than mere tradition that causes the Pope and other prelates and clerics to use a coat of arms. In addition, many popes (and other clerics) may have no descendants to whom they can pass a coat of arms but many inherited their arms from their fathers and grandfathers, etc.
My point is that I would put it to you that what is intrinsic to a coat of arms is that they be a clear and unique mark of identification. That they are inheritable is the tradition. It is accidentally true that among the other things that one may inherit from his father is included his distinctive mark of identification called his coat of arms. But, in the end one has a coat of arms to use as a personal mark of identification
not so that someone may inherit it. Rather, it just so happens that if one has descendants they may inherit it from you.
Getting back to the original point the Church does not wish to legislate on the designs on the shield for artistic reasons not for genealogical reasons. In addition, it doesn't want to get involved in granting, recording and regulating arms precisely because it does not wish to usurp the role (in many places) played by state-sponsored and/or privately chartered heraldic authorities who do this. Since the Church is Universal and supra-national it would be a mess.