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Arms of Patriarchs
Patriarchs in the Latin Rite are titles of precedence given to the ordinaries of a select group of sees. Currently, there exist only four patriarchs in the western Church -- the patriarchs of Venice, Lisbon, Jerusalem, and the East Indies. The title patriarch of the East Indies is attached to the ordinary of the see of Goa, India. A fifth patriarchate, that of the West Indies, has been vacant since 1964. Given that no pope has felt a need to fill it, it should in all likelihood be considered dead. The prescribed ornaments for the coat of arm of a partriarch are a green galero with 30 fiocchi being arranged in triangles of 15, one on each side. A patriarch also uses a double transverse processional cross.
Unlike their eastern counterparts, patriarchs in the Latin Rite occupy a peculiar and ill defined position. This is evident in that the ornament prescribed for patriarchs are a composite of elements of the arms of cardinals and archbishops. Patriarchs use the same number of tassels as cardinals -- except in green, not red -- and they use the same processional cross as archbishops. This sharing of symbols belonging to cardinals and archbishops is normally not a problem provided the galero and tassels are green. The extra tassels distinguish him from an archbishop, who has only 20 tassels total, and the green distinguishes him from a cardinal, who uses red. When a patriarch is named a cardinal, the heraldic distinction of patriarch is lost and his arms appear identical to those of a cardinal archbishop. Historically, the patriarch of Lisbon made use of the papal tiara instead of the galero. This practice was tolerated by Rome, perhaps for poltical reasons, but never condoned. Thankfully, this oddity has been relegated to history as no patriarch of Lisbon has used the tiara since 1969, choosing instead to use the green galero described above.