Pope Francis coat of arms has undergone a few major adjustments to more clearly reflect the symbolism of Mary and St. Joseph.
The five-pointed star has been replaced with an eight-pointed star, and the spikenard flower looks more like a flower rather than a bunch of grapes, as it did in its original form.
The Vatican published the new coat of arms on its website March 27, 2013.
Italian Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo, an expert on heraldry, told Catholic News Service that changing the star was "better" because the five-pointed star often carries with it "military significance," while the eight-pointed star "has always symbolized Mary" in Catholic Church tradition.
The new papal blazon contains the same symbols, though now more modified, that Pope Francis had on his episcopal coat of arms.
The dark blue shield is divided into three sections -- each of which has its own symbol. On the top is the official seal of the Society of Jesus, representing Jesus and the religious order in which the pope was ordained as a priest in 1969. The symbol shows a blazing yellow sun with inside the red letters, IHS, the sign for the name of Jesus. A red cross rises up from the letter "H," and three black nails rest below.
The bottom part of the shield depicts a gold star and a gold spikenard flower, which represent respectively Mary and St. Joseph, demonstrating the pope's "particular devotion to the Holy Virgin and St. Joseph," the Vatican said.
The shield is surrounded by the papal insignia -- a miter and the keys of St. Peter.
The miter was something Pope Benedict XVI established in 2005, putting an end to the beehive-shaped three-tiered tiara that, for centuries, had appeared at the top of each pope's coat of arms.
The silver miter has three gold stripes to mirror order, jurisdiction and magisterium, and a vertical gold band connects the three stripes in the middle to indicate their unity in the same person.
The two crossed keys have been part of papal emblems for centuries and symbolize the powers Christ gave to the apostle Peter and his successors.
The papal emblem uses a gold key to represent the power in heaven and a silver key to indicate the spiritual authority of the papacy on earth. The red cord that unites the two keys alludes to the bond between the two powers.
One detail Pope Francis changed in the papal insignia is removing the pallium from the elements surrounding the shield. The pallium, the woolen stole symbolizing a bishop's authority, was added to Pope Benedict's coat of arms in 2005.
Another change made to Pope Francis' insignia: His motto is now inscribed on a white, red-edged banner underneath the shield; earlier, the motto was just a line of text running under the shield.
Pope Francis' motto, which is the same as his episcopal motto, is based on the Gospel account of "The Call of St. Matthew," the tax collector, in a homily given by the English eighth-century Christian writer and doctor of the church, St. Bede the Venerable.
The motto is the Latin phrase "Miserando atque eligendo," which means "having mercy, he called him." The phrase refers to a line in St. Bede's homily: "Because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him."
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