As tradition dictates, every January 21, two lambs are presented to the Pope, whose wool will be used to make the palliums for the new archbishops. But… what is the story behind this tradition?
On January 21, the Church commemorates Saint Agnes, a Roman virgin and martyr of the 3rd century. She died at the age of 12 or 13 for remaining faithful to Christ and her vow of virginity.
According to tradition, when St. Agnes rejected the advances of the son of the prefect of Rome, she was punished and taken to a temple and then a brothel. Miraculously, her purity remained intact. She was condemned to the fire, but by the Grace of God, the flames did not harm her. She was ultimately beheaded.
From the earliest centuries, the Church associated St. Agnes with the image of a lamb for two reasons:
The first is that Agnes’s life is seen as similar to that of “the Lamb of God”: innocent, gentle, and devoted.
The second reason comes from the phonetic similarity of her name: the Greek Hagnē (meaning “pure” or “chaste”) was adapted into Latin as Agnēs, which sounds very similar to agnus, meaning “lamb.”
The church you see here is called Saint Agnes, located in Piazza Navona. Inside, there is a chapel that houses the saint’s skull, and it receives many visitors daily.
This is not the only church dedicated to her. The Basilica of Saint Agnes Outside the Walls was built over the catacombs where she was buried. It is at the altar of this basilica that the blessing of the lambs takes place.
All of this happens after the lambs are presented to the Pope in the Chapel of Urban VIII in the Apostolic Palace.
Later, their wool is used to make the palliums, which are presented on June 29, the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, to metropolitan archbishops—the highest authority in an ecclesiastical province.
In June 2025, during his first Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Pope Leo XIV delivered the palliums for the first time—and yes, for the first time in ten years.
Pope Francis had changed the tradition: since 2015, the palliums were only blessed in Rome, and their imposition was done by the nuncio in the archbishop’s own diocese, to highlight his connection with the local Church.
However, Pope Leo XIV resumed the tradition of imposing the palliums directly, as it was done until 2014. This gesture once again emphasizes the personal bond between the Pope and the new metropolitan archbishops, reinforcing the symbolism of pastoral authority and service represented by the band made from the wool of the lambs blessed on the feast of Saint Agnes.
BAM
Trans. CRT
