ROME – Among the usual news from the Vatican in recent days, there has been an interesting article that touches on the always vexing issue of papal security. The deal involves the arrest of an American fugitive armed with three knives in St. Peter's Square just before Pope Francis' regular Wednesday public audience on April 10th.
Moises Tejada, 53, who is classified as “extremely violent” by the New York State Department of Corrections and its Office of Special Investigations based on convictions for robbery and kidnapping, was reported that morning by Italian police as suspect. Ta. He was questioned and detained for his actions, which resulted in the discovery of three 8-inch knives in his possession.
It is not clear whether Tejada intended to pose any threat to the Pope. According to Italian media reports, the suspect told police that he had just arrived in Rome from Moldavia after leaving Ukraine, where he claimed to have been engaged in fighting with Russian forces.
Tejada was released on parole from a maximum-security prison in New York in March 2022 after being convicted of posing as a potential buyer, tying up and beating a real estate agent and stealing his car. He was cited for a parole violation and placed on New York State's “Most Wanted” list. He is currently in prison in Italy, awaiting a formal extradition request.
In most respects, from a security perspective, this may seem like a success story. As it turns out, Italian police pinpointed the potential threat and neutralized it before anything went wrong.
On the other hand, it is also a reminder of how thin the safety barrier around the Pope really is, and how often it is actually luck or providence that prevents disaster from occurring. .
Let me tell you two stories to illustrate this point.
The first stems from Pope John Paul II's 2001 visit to Greece, which culminated with a Mass at the Olympic Center in Athens. In the run-up to the trip, there were scattered protests from Orthodox hardliners opposed to the Pope's presence on Greek soil, and to avoid large-scale public spectacle, Mass was held indoors in the equivalent of a basketball stadium. (John) On record, Paul's throne was located below the home basket and scoreboard. )
Mass was briefly suspended, but a man secretly joined the offering procession and came within two feet of the Pope, when no one realized he belonged there and was subdued by local security. It was done. At the end of the Mass, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that he was actually mentally disabled and was going to give John Paul his collection of paintings. When the man was brought forward, the Pope gave him a warm embrace, and the crowd cheered in approval.
It had a happy ending, as a stranger with no qualifications managed to get within close range of the Pope without anyone challenging his presence or even realizing that he was there. I have to remember that. If he had wanted to harm John Paul, he would have had ample opportunity to do so.
Perhaps, some might say, such blunders reflect a more innocent age. After all, the trip to Greece took place four months before the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers, when security was generally much more relaxed.
To that end, here's a second story, almost 20 years later.
On September 2, 2020, Pope Francis held his first general audience since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. To keep the number of spectators small, it was performed in the courtyard of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace rather than in St. Peter's Square.
By chance, my wife Elise and I were in the crowd that day, not just as journalists, but as we Italians call them. novel, or “new spouse.” It's a long-standing tradition that newlyweds arrive for Wednesday's audience in their wedding attire and receive a front-row seat and a personal blessing from the Pope, and we wanted to be part of it.
We actually got married in January and returned from our honeymoon to Rome in mid-February, novel However, soon after, the coronavirus lockdown began and we were forced to wait. (Strict rules state that she must be married within two months of the audience's date, but at that stage no one was sweating the details.)
Being me, I made sure I had copies of our civil and church marriage certificates, as well as copies of both our Italian and American IDs, to prove our sincerity. At the event, absolutely no one asked to see it. And it wasn't because the usher knew us as journalists. As per Covid protocols we were both wearing face masks so basically we were unrecognizable and neither of us were showing our faces. press pass.
Instead, the simple fact that we were wearing our wedding attire allowed us to get through security and into front row seats without any metal checks or pat-downs. She remembers telling Elise at the time that some people would show up with an RPG and that it would be perfectly fine as long as she wore a wedding suit.
These are just two small personal experiences, but they illustrate a larger point. In doing this work for more than 25 years, I have learned that there is a world of difference between the security apparatus involved in public events for the Pope and, for example, the President of the United States. there is. The barrier between the pope and the public is far less formidable.
Of course, one could attribute this to Italians' generally relaxed attitude towards many issues that Anglo-Saxons view with much more scrutiny, or it could be completely wrong. Not that there is. It could also be argued that the pope is first and foremost a pastor, not a politician, and that popes tend to want to minimize the separation between themselves and the pope.
But there are other factors at play that elevate the discussion of papal security from the realm of tactics and ritual to the dimension of faith. Simply put, the Popes do not believe that their safety is completely dependent on bodyguards and metal detectors; they also believe in the role of God.
For example, on May 13, 1981, the day of the attempted assassination of Mehmet Ali Acha, and of course the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, Pope John Paul II was deeply convinced that the Virgin Mary had changed his flight path. Please remember that They fired a bullet to save his life and preserve his papacy. He later said that although Ali Ajah's hand fired the gun, “it was his mother's hand that guided the bullet's path, and the pope stopped in agony on the brink of death.”
To confirm that point, a year later he traveled to Fatima to place one of the bullets that doctors had extracted from the body into the crown on the head of the famous statue of the Virgin Mary.
Of course, this is not to say that the popes are not taking reasonable precautions or are careless about their own safety. Above all, they know that by taking unnecessary risks, they are putting not only themselves but also those around them at risk. For example, the Pope does not want a 20-year-old Vatican gendarme to die just because the Pope feels like rolling the dice that day.
Popes, on the other hand, are hard-wired not to let security concerns get in the way when something important is at stake. Because, after all, they believe that their fate is not entirely in the hands of mortals. People they harm and try hard to keep them safe.
