(Or PASTORAL STAFF). The crosier is an ecclesiastical ornament
which is conferred on bishops at their consecration and on
mitred abbots at their investiture, and which is used by these
prelates in performing certain solemn functions. It is sometimes
stated that archbishops do not use the crosier. This is not so,
the truth being that in addition to the pastoral staff they have
also the right to have the archiepiscopal cross borne before
them within the territory of their jurisdiction. According to
present-day usage the Roman pontiff does not use the crosier.
That this practice is now a departure from primitive discipline
is now thoroughly established, for in the early representations
of the popes found on tablets, coins, and other monuments, the
crosier is to be seen (Kraus, Geschichte der christlichen Kunst,
II, 500). But in the eleventh century this must have
disappeared, since Innocent III (d. 1216) intimates that it no
longer prevailed (Epistola ad Patr. Const.). As a reason why the
pope does not use crosi