Security tighter as Pope visits soup kitchen
POPE Benedict shared a meal with the homeless, poor and elderly yesterday during a visit to a soup kitchen marked by increased security following the incident in which a woman knocked him down during Christmas Eve Mass.
The Pope spent several hours at the soup kitchen run by the Sant’ Egidio Community, a lay Catholic group that has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Benedict, who appeared in good form, ate with 150 people and sat next to Qorb
anali Esmaili, a 34-year-old Afghan Muslim who has political refugee status and has been in Italy for ten years. Others at his table included a 90-year-old Italian widower, a 24-year-old gypsy man, a 62-year-old Somali woman and a 35-year-old Nigerian man.
When the Pope leaves the Vatican, much of the security is provided by Italian police who join the Vatican security detail that was protecting him on Christmas Eve. The number of both Italian and Vatican security personnel seemed greater yesterday than in past visits in Rome.
Vatican security has been under a cloud since Thursday night when Susanna Maiolo, 25, an Italian-Swiss national, vaulted over a barricade in St Peter’s Basilica, lunged at the Pope, grabbed his vestments and pulled him to the floor.
Vatican sources say security will be reviewed but that they will not take any action that would impede the Pope from direct contact with crowds – something they wanted to hammer home to the media yesterday by allowing him to greet many in the crowd.
Vatican officials made a point of lining up a large group of children behind a barrier on the pavement so he could meet them.