Wives of Swiss Guards: Work Schedules, Kids and School Buses Create Adventure in the Vatican

By Melissa Butz

Swiss Guards have very rigorous working hours, being constantly on-call to protect Pope Francis. Yet, they also have a personal life and around 20 guards have wives and families.

Brenda, Janik and Veronika are three of the wives that live within the Vatican walls. They each have three children, making up nearly half of the 20 children of Swiss Guards living at the Vatican.

“Living here with the family is, is a great opportunity, not only for us as parents, but for the children as well. I think one of the big challenges is the schedules, which our husbands have. That’s one of the things, because obviously, the guard works 24/7, weekends included,” said Brenda.

For years, only guards who had attained the rank of corporal could get married. This is because there are a limited number of larger apartments, which are given to families or married guards. However, all that is now changing with Pope Francis.

“He accepted the proposal to allow guards marry after five years of service. Before it was only after being a corporal. Now everyone can get married,” said Janik.

Brenda added, “Pope Francis himself didn’t like the situation much. So it really initiated with him that he wanted to change the rules. Those rules have now been changed. So, you no longer have to be a corporal, which means that your professional success is no more linked to your private life as it was before. I think that’s a really good change.”

While Janik’s and Brenda’s husbands had both served as guards for Pope John Paul II earlier in their career, Veronika is completely new to Vatican, only being here three months for her husband’s first-time service.

“My everyday life is very similar to back in Switzerland. I wake up; the bigger children must go to school; then the housework is done. It’s all very similar to back in Switzerland. Shopping and cooking, we have a dog that we go for walks with in the gardens,” said Veronika.

The wives say their daily lives are normal, just lived out within Vatican walls. The children play there all together, but leave the smallest country in the world to go to school.

“They all go to the Swiss school. So to get there and to get back that forces the parents to do things together. We’ve been fortunate enough to receive two little mini buses from a foundation which supports the guards and Switzerland. Those mini buses are driven by the parents in turn,” said Brenda.
Janik added, “They told me, if you have a license, you drive. Ok, that’s fine. Because finding a driver costs a lot and it’s easier for us parents to all take turns driving.”

The parents have formed a tight-knit community with one another, especially the ones who have children. While the Swiss Guards protect the pope daily, the families see him once a year, for the Swiss Guards’ swearing-in ceremony on May 6. On this day each year, new guards are able to join the army of men carefully selected to protect the Holy Father.

The Pope’s “Great Swat” of New Year’s 2020

By John L. Allen Jr.

ROME – Never let it be said that Pope Francis lacks imagination when it comes to making his peak moments on the public stage interesting. This New Year’s holiday, he managed to generate an entirely unforeseen storyline with what we might, tongue-in-cheek, call his “Great Swat.”

By now, everyone knows what happened: When Francis exited St. Peter’s Basilica on New Year’s Eve for his traditional visit to the Nativity scene in the square and then his round of greeting people along a set of barriers, an overly aggressive woman grabbed his hand and just wouldn’t let go, causing a visibly angry pontiff to turn back, swat her hand a couple of times and scold her.

I couldn’t actually make out what Francis said in that heated moment, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, “Happy New Year.”

For those who follow Francis closely, the revelation that an 83-year-old Argentinian male has a temper wasn’t exactly a thunderclap, since we’ve seen it often enough before. Nonetheless, video of the incident went viral and became an internet sensation.

The next day, during his noontime Angelus address, Francis was musing on God’s patience, and then said we all lose our patience sometimes, himself included, apologizing for his “poor example” the previous evening.

What made the situation especially ironic was that Francis dedicated his homily at the New Year’s Day Mass to the issue of violence against women, saying at one point that “by how we treat a woman’s body, we can understand our level of humanity.”

Herewith, three quick take-aways from the “Great Swat” of New Year’s 2020.

PR Panache?

Imagine this scenario: A deep-pocketed Madison Avenue PR firm is posed a challenge. A major public figure is planning to deliver a strong message about violence against women, but in a holiday moment in which attention is likely to be directed elsewhere and to happier subjects. Given the familiarity of the issue and the inopportune timing, on its own that message isn’t likely to generate much media buzz.

What might the PR firm recommend to gin up some interest?

In all honesty, it would be hard to conjure anything more effective than what Francis actually delivered, even if it’s probably not quite the way a Madison Avenue agency would have counseled him to go about it.

I was doing some hits for CNN on New Year’s Day, and at one stage a few of us were in the newsroom here in Rome going over the pope’s homily. A colleague at one point said, “You know, this is a really strong homily, and he says some important stuff.” There was a pause, and then I asked: “Okay, but would we be on air today talking about it without the slap?”

Without a second’s hesitation, every head in the room nodded in the negative.

Obviously, the pope probably won’t want to go to this particular well very often, but in this one instance, it has to be said he found a way to grab an audience that otherwise might well not have materialized.

Apologies

Public figures often find themselves apologizing for one thing or another, and often their mea culpas don’t have much effect. They come off as formulaic and insincere, more an exercise in damage control than genuine contrition.

Francis, however, got a fair bit of credit for his insta-apology on New Year’s, seeming gracious and pastoral. The reaction illustrates one of the fixed laws of the universe when it comes to such matters.

To wit: “The effectiveness of an apology varies in direct proportion to whether most people believe you actually have anything to apologize for.”

Honestly, people watching the scene play out probably came away thinking that if anybody needed to apologize, it was the grasping woman rather than the pope. After all, this was an octogenarian who suffers from sciatica we’re talking about, whose hand was being yanked by someone who clearly didn’t understand when it was time to let go.

Had Francis done something more egregious in response, an apology might not have sufficed. By simply responding in a way most people could imagine themselves doing under similar circumstances, he converted losing his cool into a boost for his reputation for graciousness and human decency.

(In describing public reaction, by the way, I’m talking about ordinary people who generally don’t pay a lot of attention to papal happenings. Among Catholic insiders, naturally, response tended to break along ideological lines, with traditionalists in particular shouting “a-ha!” at a supposed unmasking of Francis’s inner nastiness.

(You know who actually were especially quick to defend the pope in this case? Some of my Roman friends who drive cabs, run restaurants or otherwise have to deal with grabby, aggressive tourists all the time, a few of whom were cheering for Francis to go even more ballistic.)

A Thin Penumbra

In the various TV and radio bits I did about the New Year’s incident, probably the best question I got all night came from a CNN anchor who asked, “Where was Vatican security while all this was happening?”

It’s a great question, since it’s hard to imagine something similar happening to, say, a U.S. president. Secret service agents are trained to study faces in rope lines, to watch for anyone who seems overly clingy or aggressive, and to defuse such situations before they happen.

Granted, Francis is without the pope’s longtime chief of security, Italian layman Domenico Giani, who was sent packing earlier this year over a scandal that involved leaked copies of internal investigations.

One imagines that right now, Gauzzi Broccoletti, Giani’s successor, is making his staff watch video tape of the New Year’s incident to try to ensure that something similar never happens again. (Broccoletti heretofore has been an expert in cybersecurity, so this sort of flesh-and-blood challenge may be a bit new.)

In general, however, over the course of roughly 25 years of covering popes, I have to say that the security membrane around them on such public occasions is much thinner than those which surround other major world leaders.

In part, that’s because popes think of themselves first and foremost as pastors, and don’t want to separate themselves from ordinary people any more than necessary. In part, too, it’s because popes believe that ultimately their security is in the hands of a much higher power. In part it’s also a cultural difference, because Italians are just generally more relaxed about such things.

In any event, perhaps the price of being the world’s parish priest is running the risk of such minor annoyances as we saw New Year’s Eve. Honestly, the remarkable thing probably isn’t that it happened, but that it doesn’t happen more often.

Iranian Leader Killed in Baghdad Rocket Attack

Currents News Staff

The Iranian National Security council is holding an urgent session Friday, Jan 3. This comes in the aftermath of the U.S. taking responsibility for an attack that killed two Iranian officials – one of whom was the commander of the country’s Islamic revolutionary guards Quds force.

President Trump tweeted an image of the American flag without comment Thursday night. But the Pentagon confirms the President ordered the strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force.

“My question to the Americans is ‘What’s your plan for keeping Iraq stable after pulling this off?’”, said Feisal Istrabadi of the Center for the Study of the Middle East at Indiana University.

According to a Pentagon statement, the U.S. took “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad” by killing Soleimani.

Democrats expressed concern about legalities of the strike. “Obviously we need to do what’s necessary to protect the lives of Americans but unfortunately actions this administration has taken for weeks and months now have taken a difficult situation and made it much worse,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen from Maryland.

Republicans heaped praise on President Trump. Lindsey Graham tweeted “I appreciate President Donald Trump’s bold action against Iranian aggression. To the Iranian government: if you want more, you will get more.”

The Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran tweeted the attack was “extremely dangerous and a foolish escalation.” and that “the U.S. Bears responsibility for all consequences.”

“This is a direct action between the United States against a senior military commander of Iran. It’s isn’t a proxy war anymore,” said Istrabadi.

Currents News for Thursday, January 2, 2020

On the newscast: Pope Francis apologizes after an incident in Saint Peter’s Square on New Year’s Eve; More anti-Semitic attacks and a very powerful message from the daughter of a machete attack victim who is still in a coma; The field thins out as Julian Castro calls it quits in the race for the White House – the other candidates taking Iowa by storm; And celebrating Haitian Independence Day with a mass in Brooklyn.

Watch weeknights at 7:00 pm EST on NET-TV in the New York City area on Spectrum, Optimum, and Fios. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive notifications about new content.

New Year’s Day Attack Adds to Spree of Anti-Semitic Violence

By Christopher White and Emily Drooby

NEW YORK — New Year’s Day began with yet another local anti-Semitic attack, when a 22-year-old Hasidic man was beaten and subjected to hate speech in Williamsburg — the 13th known attack against Jews in the New York area in less than 10 days.

The violence on Jan. 1 followed the Hanukah attack at the home of a rabbi in Monsey, N.Y., where five people were stabbed in an incident that Gov. Andrew Cuomo labeled as “domestic terrorism.”

Family members of one of the victims of that attack, Josef Neumann, released a graphic photo on Jan. 1 of the father of seven children hooked up to respirators and stitched up from the multiple stab wounds he incurred. Doctors expect Neumann to be permanently paralyzed and are unsure if he will ever regain consciousness.

In response to the heinous attack, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio said, “Hate like this has no place in a civil society.”

“Today we are reminded it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. Let us be that light as we pray for peace and practice tolerance today and always,” Bishop DiMarzio continued in a statement.

Bishop DiMarzio also joined more than 130 faith leaders from across the state, including New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, to condemn the attack.

“Anti-Semitism, bigotry and hate of any kind are repugnant to our values and will not be tolerated in our state,” they said. “An attack against one of us is an attack against all of us. Together we will continue fighting hate and intolerance with love and inclusion.”

The recent attacks in New York come at a time when people of faith are facing increased violence at houses of worship across the nation.

According to the latest data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, hate crimes in churches, synagogues, temples and mosques have risen 34.8 percent between 2014 and 2018.

On Dec. 29, in Texas, a gunman fatally shot two churchgoers at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, before being killed by a security guard on-site.

The past year proved particularly deadly for people of all faiths across the globe. Incidents included the Easter Day massacres in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people and attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, last March that killed 51 individuals.

In recent days, New York has ramped up security around houses of worship, and the governor has ordered increased patrolling efforts in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods throughout the state.

On New Year’s Day, Cuomo visited Williamsburg to stand in solidarity with the community there.

“The Jewish community is very important to me personally. It’s been very important to my family for many years,” Cuomo said.

“Everybody feels very upset and disturbed about what happened and everybody stands in solidarity with you,” he continued. “So I’m here today, not just for me, I’m here representing all the people of the state of New York who want to say they’re sorry about the tragedy, and they stand with you in total solidarity and love, because that’s what we are.”

Pope Opens New Year with Strong Condemnation of Violence Against Women

By Elise Harris

ROME (Crux) – Pope Francis began 2020 with a bang Wednesday, issuing a harsh condemnation of violence against women and insisting that how society treats women and their bodies is a measure of its level of humanity.

In a special Mass marking the Catholic Church’s Jan. 1 feast celebrating Mary, Mother of God, the pope noted that in God’s plan of salvation, “The rebirth of humanity began with a woman.”

“From her, woman, salvation arose and therefore there is no salvation without the woman…Women are sources of life,” he said. “Yet they are continually offended, beaten, raped, forced into prostitution and forced to suppress the lives they carry in their wombs.”

“Every violence inflicted on women is a profanation of God, born of a woman. Humanity’s salvation came from the body of a woman: By how we treat a woman’s body, we can understand our level of humanity,” the pope said.

He condemned the frequent “sacrifice” of a woman’s body on “the profane altars” of profit-making industries such as advertising and pornography. A woman’s body “must be freed from consumerism, it must be respected and honored,” he said, calling it “the noblest flesh in the world, it conceived and gave birth to the love that saved us!”

Motherhood is also often “humiliated,” he said, “because the only growth that draws interest is that of the economy.”

“There are mothers who risk perilous journeys to try desperately to give the fruit of their wombs a better future,” yet they are dismissed “by people who have a full belly, but of things, and a heart devoid of love.”

This is not the first time Francis has spoken out on behalf of women. Violence against women is a cause he has taken to heart, issuing frequent condemnations of pornography, forced abortions, and forced prostitution, which many women, specifically victims of human trafficking, endure.

He has also corresponded with women who have suffered domestic violence, including an Italian mother named Filomena Lamberti, whose face was disfigured when her husband threw acid on her.

One of the most recent examples of the pope’s attention to the cause was given by Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki, who in the January 2020 edition of Donna, Chiesa, Mondo, a monthly women’s supplement to the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, recounted words the pope shared with her on the topic during an interview.

Alazraki, who has interviewed Francis twice, penned an article for the supplement dedicated to violence against women in which she tells the story of Rocio, a 27-year-old mother of three who was killed in Mexico in front of her 8-year-old son after accidentally overhearing drug traffickers discuss their plans while eating at the restaurant Rocio worked at.

Alazraki, who has written a book about violence against women, was given the shirt Rocio wore the day she died by Rocio’s son. She brought the shirt with her to her interview with the pope, and, upon hearing Rocio’s story, the pope became emotional, she said.

Once the interview was over, Francis picked up the shirt and uttered a prayer for Rocio, calling her blouse “a flag of the suffering of so many women who give life and pass by without a name. We know the name of Rocio…but of many others no. They pass without leaving their name but a seed.”

This seed, he said, according to Alazraki, must be “an awareness of all this.”

In his homily Wednesday, Francis urged Catholics to imitate Mary and questioned them on their attitude toward others, including those closest to them, insisting that Mary helps to overcome indifference and to foster unity.

The devil, Francis said, tries to divide the Church by “putting in first place, differences, ideologies, parties and partisan thoughts. But we do not understand the Church if we look at it starting with structures, programs and trends: We will take something from it, but not the heart. Because the Church has the heart of a mother.”

Francis closed his homily praying that as the new year begins, Christians would live it “with the desire to take others to heart, to take care of others.”

“If we want a better world, that it be a house of peace and not of war, at the heart is the dignity of every woman. From woman the Prince of Peace was born. The woman is the donor and mediator of peace,” he said, insisting that women “must be fully associated with decision-making processes.”

When women are able to share their gifts, he said, “the world finds itself more united and more peaceful. Therefore, an achievement for women is an achievement for all of humanity.”

Haitian Independence Day Celebrated Throughout Diocese

By Jessica Easthope

Ringing in the New Year is a tradition celebrated by all – but for the Haitian community, January 1st means independence.

Every year a Haitian Independence Day Mass is held at a different church in the diocese. This year the Mass was celebrated at Holy Family Parish in Canarsie.

Though the Mass is a joyous occasion, the faithful in attendance were quick to speak about a timely and solemn issue that is on the minds of Haitians this holiday.

Gaelle Prussien comes every year with her family to the Mass. “The majority of Haitians who come to the United States are coming for a better life and Haiti right now is in turmoil,” Prussien said.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio has been celebrating the Haitian Independence Day Mass for the last 15 years. “We also pray for the immigrants especially those dealing with TPS try and get them some permanent status, the political situation is unstable so we try to help whoever we can,” said Brooklyn’s Bishop.

Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, has been extended to January 4, 2021; however, pending further court decision in 2020, that could be the last date Haitians are protected from deportation back to Haiti which is dealing with political corruption and the continued aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated the island nation.

Despite the stress of uncertainty, celebrating independence was a priority. After Mass, hundreds poured into Holy Family’s gymnasium for a feast.

Guests sat at red, white and blue tables decorated with Haitian flags and enjoyed soup joumou, a traditional Haitian food that’s eaten on Independence Day every year.

“They could not have the soup and when they became free that was their liberty and the way to show their independence,” said Marie Guelda Bericles, who helped prepare the soup.

As 2020 begins, church leaders are working to maintain a safe place for Haitian immigrants and those who need most to be welcomed into the country with open arms.

Global Hot Spots Spark Challenges for U.S. in 2020

Currents News Staff

As we clean up the confetti ushering in the new year, President Trump ushers in a new trade deal with China.

“We are very excited about trade. The China Deal will be signed probably on January 15th. We put out a notice today and I will be going at some point to Beijing to be with President Xi,” said Trump.

That trip will come in the midst of ongoing anti-government protests in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the protesters outside the U.S. embassy in Iraq say they’ve asked everyone to withdraw Wednesday.

U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook says it comes after strong leadership from the Trump administration.

“Secretary Pompeo is in pretty regular touch with the Iraqi leadership // So we’re pleased that the Iraqi security services have come in and done what is necessary and so our diplomats are safe and so is our embassy,” said Hook.

Another international place of tension is North Korea, where leader Kim Jong Un says promises made at their summit last year aren’t being kept – and he’s now threatening new strategic weapons.

“He made those commitments to President Trump agreeing not to conduct large scale military exercises. We’ve lived up to our agreements. We continue to hold out hope that he’ll live up to his as well,” said Pompeo.

Back at home, the pending Senate impeachment trial also looms over President Trump and lawmakers.

Currents News for Monday, December 23, 2019

On the newscast: Pope Francis is warning that Christianity is declining and reform is needed right now; The holiday stalemate over the Senate impeachment trial – takes a turn. Democrats now say newly released emails make it necessary for White House witnesses to testify; Boeing’s chief executive is fired over the company’s handling of the 737 Max jet crisis. And weather headaches kick off Christmas travel on the roads and in the air.

Watch weeknights at 7:00 pm EST on NET-TV in the New York City area on Spectrum, Optimum, and Fios. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive notifications about new content.

Pope’s Annual End of the Year Speech

Currents News Staff

In his annual end of the year speech to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis discussed his decision to limit the term of the dean of the College of Cardinals. The influential position is one that had previously been held for life.

He also acknowledged that Christianity no longer holds the commanding presence and influence in society that it once did.

The pontiff’s message appears to be aimed at conservative and traditionalist Catholics, who have voiced opposition to his progressive minded papacy.

Joining Currents News to discuss the impact this change has as the Church moves forward is John Allen, Editor-in-Chief of Crux, in Rome.