{"id":1524,"date":"2007-06-08T11:31:58","date_gmt":"2007-06-08T11:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/guarding-the-pope.html"},"modified":"2007-06-08T11:31:58","modified_gmt":"2007-06-08T11:31:58","slug":"guarding-the-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/guarding-the-pope.html","title":{"rendered":"Guarding the Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

In light of recent events:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Pope Benedict XVI’s security guards are known for composure under pressure, and they showed it when a deranged German tried to jump onto the pope’s jeep at a general audience. <\/p>\n

Within seconds, 11 Vatican plainclothes agents — Swiss Guards and policemen — subdued the 27-year-old man and pinned him to the ground. He was unarmed, and the pope was unharmed in the June 6 incident. <\/p>\n

The whole thing happened so quickly and quietly that it went unnoticed by most people in the square, including the pope. No guns were drawn and no alarms were sounded. The pope’s jeep never sped up, and most of the faithful, even those right in front of the scene, just kept snapping pictures of the pontiff. <\/p>\n

It was a classic display of the Vatican’s elegant and understated approach to security, which relies more on intuitive alertness than a show of force. <\/p>\n

But despite the official sighs of relief, episodes like this inevitably raise apprehensions. With the pope passing through tens of thousands of people in an open jeep each Wednesday, it’s very difficult to prevent an overly enthusiastic or mentally unstable person from running toward him. <\/p>\n

Except during bad weather, popes riding through St. Peter’s Square generally have not used the covered popemobile, which has bulletproof glass. Even after he was shot in the square in 1981, Pope John Paul II continued to use an open jeep for such appearances. <\/p>\n

The whole idea, of course, is for the pope to get close to those who came to see him. The papal vehicle crisscrosses the lanes that divide seating sections in the square, about an arm’s length from the people in the crowd, so that everyone can get a good look and a photo. <\/p>\n

Tickets are required to attend the pope’s general audience, but they are easily obtainable. <\/p>\n

Since the pope insists on being out in the open, the Vatican relies on subtle layers of protection. Most importantly, before entering St. Peter’s Square all pilgrims now pass through airport-style metal detectors and have their bags searched, in an operation carried out by the Italian police force assigned to the area around the square. <\/p>\n

The metal detectors and bag checks were introduced during the Holy Year 2000, but were used much more routinely after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. <\/p>\n

The Italian police agents patrol St. Peter’s Square when it’s not being used for audiences, ceremonies or liturgies. But during papal events, the Vatican’s own security teams take over. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In light of recent events: Pope Benedict XVI’s security guards are known for composure under pressure, and they showed it when a deranged German tried to jump onto the pope’s jeep at a general audience. Within seconds, 11 Vatican plainclothes agents — Swiss Guards and policemen — subdued the 27-year-old man and pinned him to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nGuarding the Pope - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/guarding-the-pope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guarding the Pope - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In light of recent events: Pope Benedict XVI’s security guards are known for composure under pressure, and they showed it when a deranged German tried to jump onto the pope’s jeep at a general audience. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}