Joseph Abel Francis

JOSEPH ABEL FRANCIS

Born: September 30, 1923
Deceased: September 1, 1997

Auxiliary Bishop of Newark, 1976-1995;Titular Bishop of Valliposita

Official blazon
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Origin/meaning

The struggle of black people for liberation inspires the coat of arms of Bishop Joseph A. Francis, the fourth black member of the U S. hierarchy. The cross is the sign of our ultimate liberation through Christ’s death, and also recalls the emblem of the Divine Word Fathers, Bishop Francis’ religious family.

Standing in the center of a broken chain, it also symbolizes the unity of people in Christ, as well as the faith which sustained the bishop’s slave ancestors in their bondage in the American South.

The towers in the lower right are the Watts Towers, constructed by an unlettered Italian man and standing as a symbol of a poor man’s desire for recognition and immortality, in that section of Los Angeles which was torn by inter-racial violence in 1965. His time in Watts as founding director of Verbum Dei High School is considered by Bishop Francis the most productive period of his life so far. The spires of the towers are symbols of hope, reaching upwards, free from the bonds of the earth. One is white, the other black, to show the beauty of blackness enhancing whiteness, and vice versa.

The stalks in the lower left are sugar cane, the symbol of both the oppression and survival of his ancestors who worked the cane fields in his native Louisiana. The shield is executed in red, black and green, the colors of the liberation flag.

The motto, “Justice, Peace, Liberty,” sums up the goal to which Bishop Francis has dedicated his life as a black religious, a priest and missionary, and now a member of the hierarchy.

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