Churches
Among other maces (more correctly described as staves) in use today are those carried before ecclesiastical dignitaries and clergy in cathedrals and some parish churches. The ecclesiastical equivalent of the mace-bearer, the dodsman, appears in church contexts. Other churches, particularly churches of the Anglican Communion, a verger ceremoniously precedes processions.
In the Roman Catholic Church maces used to be carried before Popes and Cardinals.
Read more about this topic: Ceremonial Mace
Famous quotes containing the word churches:
“Can you conceive what it is to native-born American women citizens, accustomed to the advantages of our schools, our churches and the mingling of our social life, to ask over and over again for so simple a thing as that “we, the people,” should mean women as well as men; that our Constitution should mean exactly what it says?”
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4 ch. 5, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The law of God is a law of change, and ... when the Churches set themselves against change as such, they are setting themselves against the law of God.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places for believing practices.... Politics has once again become religious.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)