The Mass is still going on at St. Peter's but I have to post this 'bulletin' quickly. If you were watching the telecast, you would have noted that shortly after the entrance procession started, the lead acolytes suddenly stopped midway, and plainclothes security started running from the front part of the Basilica towards the back.
The TV commentator had no idea why - and I had an anxious several seconds wondering "Oh please, dear God, don't let it be anything awful!"....Happily, the procession re-started (probably only a minute or so was lost), and soon there was our beloved Pope walking down the aisle appearing well and unruffled.....It turns out it could have been bad, as this AP bulletin makes clear....
Pope knocked down by
woman before Christmas Mass
VATICAN CITY, Dec. 24 (AP) – A Vatican spokesman says a woman jumped the barriers in St. Peter's Basilica and
knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass.
The Rev. Ciro Benedettini said the Pope quickly got up and was unhurt. Benedict, 82, calmly resumed his walk to the basilica's main altar and began the Mass late Thursday.
Benedettini said the woman who pushed the Pope appeared to be mentally unstable and had been arrested by Vatican police.
He said she also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, 87, who was taken to the hospital for a check up.
I certainly hope Dr. Polisca puts the Pope through appropriate tests to make sure he did not hit his head nor suffer any bone damage of the kind that does not immediately make itself felt... even if he seemed perfectly OK during the Mass. !
One of the first photos taken after the Holy Father resumed the entry procession - nothing to indicate he had just been knocked down. And it couldn't have been pleasant at all for anyone, even for someone half his age, to be knocked down by a madwoman.
However, the newsphoto agemcies went out of their way to take as many snaps as they could of the Pope being assisted or anything that would seem to suggest weakness or injury, as below:
The Pope was in fine form throughout - and I will post the rest of the'regular' pictures in the Mass coverage.
P.S. AP has filed two frames taken from an amateur video - the first two as the person was rushing towards the Pope, the other no longer showing their figures nor those of the security men around the Pope.
An AP videoclip carries the amateur footage shot above, and it clearly shows someone in a red shirt leaping over the barrier to the right of th Pope, and he does disappear from view... Sorry it comes with a movie commercial at the start.
link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid42806360001?bctid=590...
An isolated report later said he was not knocked down, but the video appears to show he was, and the Vatican's own spokesman said so.
AFP has more details now:
Woman rushes at Pope, pulls him down
just before the Christmas Mass
By Gina Doggett
VATICAN CITY, Dec. 24 (AFPO) — Papal bodyguards overpowered a woman who rushed at Pope Benedict XVI, yanking him to the ground Thursday as he entered St Peter's Basilica to celebrate Christmas Eve mass.
Video footage showed the woman, dressed in a red sweatshirt, jumping over a security barricade and rushing at the 82-year-old Pope as he began leading the traditional procession of about 30 cardinals to the vast basilica's altar.
She was immediately tackled by a security guard, but succeeded in
grabbing Benedict's vestments near the neck and yanking him to the ground, according to video footage taken by a pilgrim broadcast on Sky News.
Several others fell over in the melee.
Prominent French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, 87, broke a leg in the incident though he was "several metres (yards)" from the pope, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP, adding that the prelate was rushed to hospital.
The woman is in the custody of the Vatican police, the ANSA news agency reported, adding that she said she wanted to hug the Pontiff.
Lombardi said she may have been the same woman who tried to approach Benedict on the same occasion a year ago without getting past the security barrier.
After the incident, Benedict quickly recovered, and bore a gold cross in a solemn procession to the altar as the mass began at 10:00 pm (2100 GMT).
Dressed in gold and white vestments and mitre, the Pope showed no discomfort as he read out his Christmas Eve homily, decrying selfishness, which he said "makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another.
"Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world," the spiritual leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics said in Italian.
Thursday's incident occurred amid concern over the Pope's health prompted by a Vatican decision to schedule the Mass two hours early this year instead of the traditional midnight hour due to the Pontiff's advanced age.
Lombardi insisted earlier that the change, a Vatican first, was only a "sensible precaution" for the octogenarian Pontiff.
The decision was taken several weeks ago. Lombardi said the change was "no cause for alarm," adding that the German Pontiff's condition was "absolutely normal" for a man of his age.
Lombardi said the move was aimed at making Christmas "a little less tiring for the Pope, who has many engagements during this time".
On Friday, Pope Benedict is to deliver his traditional "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world) message broadcast to dozens of countries at noon on Friday.
Benedict has had no notable health problems since his 2005 election apart from a fractured wrist from a fall in July while holidaying in northern Italy.
Four years before he became Pope however, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spent
nearly a month [???I always had the impression it was just a few days!] in hospital following a brain haemorrhage, according to the German daily
Bild. It said he has suffered from fainting spells.
[Where does that come from???? BILD is a tabloid that always tends to sensationalize bad news!]
Pope Benedict's long-serving predecessor John Paul II insisted on observing the tradition of beginning the Mass at midnight despite years of ill health, notably the ravages of Parkinson's disease, at the end of his life. He died in April 2005 aged 84.
{What is that meant to imply? That Benedict XVI is somehow to be reproached because he chooses to start Mass two hours earlier even if he is stil two years younger than his predecessor was and does not suffer from a degenerative disease? That's petty and mean faultfinding.]
P.S.
I hope it is not true Cardinal Etchegaray broke his leg - a major fracture can really be bad at his age.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/12/2009 11:16]