Edward Hillenbrand wrote:
I do have a few other questions: I thought the Catherine's Wheel was supposed to have a break in it? Also, I used the flag of the Vatican to indicate where or for whom he was tortured. Is that misinformation? Realize I am using a lot of online heraldry books/sites so wrong information is not unheard of.
I did use the lozenge shaped shield as the Father worked in Kenya and that shield has a lot of meaning for Padre.
St Catherine was said to have miraculously caused the wheel to break, so a broken wheel would be appropriate, though this was often not the case in heraldic representations.
I would have said that the poor man was tortured for his faith in Christianity rather than for the Vatican, a political entity. But you should bear in mind that I am a Protestant.
Boutell describes the shield you were thinking of as a "native shield". But this description is rather vague as there are/were many traditional designs throughout the non-European world. I have not come across Joe's "vesica shaped" before. It is certainly accurate, as Wiki explains:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesica_piscis
but not readily identifiable in heraldic circles. You might prefer to describe it as a Kenyan traditional shield. I should add that the blazons of Kenya's and Tanzania's arms do not, according to Boutell, mention that the shields are African.