Some things about a bishop’s coat of arms are solidly set. Overall, there’s a flat-brimmed green hat (called a galero) with six tassels hanging from a cord on each side of the shield, arranged one, two, three.

Beneath the hat, a processional cross, a shield, and beneath the shield, a scroll with a motto.

But it is what is within the shield that makes the coat of arms unique.

Father Guy W. Selvester of the Diocese of Metuchen, N.J., who designed the coat of arms for Bishop Galeone and whose parents live in Palm Coast, explains that every bishop must have a coat of arms. “Canon law requires the coat of arms to emboss and seal documents. Every official document coming from the diocese must be sealed with his identifying mark, an engraving of his coat of arms.”

Heraldry began with secular coats of arms, but it was adopted by the church in the late Middle Ages and has been used ever since. “It’s a science and an art,” Father Selvester said, “There are definite rules and regulations that you have to follow, but it is also an art. And that’s part of the reason I got into this. It enables me to have some outlet for creativity.

“I became interested in heraldry in high school. But I didn’t begin serious study of it until college. Then, when I was a seminarian, studying at St. Vincent in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, I was taken under the wing of an expert, Geza Grosschmid, Ph.D. at the Academie Internationale d’ Heraldique. I was fortunate because there is basically no place to go and study heraldry.”

“What he did was help me get work and critique what I did. He was a collaborator and personal friend of Archbishop Bruno Heim, who designed the coats of arms for the past five popes.

Father Selvester, who has designed coats of arms for 17 years, said he has designed coats of arms for about nine abbots, two different seminaries, a number of bishops and helped modify the coat of arms for the Catholic Theological Society of America.

In the coat of arms for Bishop Galeone, Father Selvester said, “He had no idea at that time of a color scheme. In his head it was my job to come in with a sketch. I began to work with colors and eventually settled on the blue and gold used in Pope John Paul II’s coat of arms — because he appointed Bishop Galeone.

“It was the bishop who selected his personal motto, Love - Joy - Peace, for the scroll below the shield.”

Father Selvester serves as parochial vicar at St. Philip and St. James at Phillipsburg, N.J. He is also the moderator and host of the diocesan radio program, Proclaim the Good News!
Yet he has close ties to the Diocese of Saint Augustine. His parents, Alfred and Patricia, lived in Long Island but when they retired, they came to Palm Coast where they’re members of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish.