The security nightmare in Pope Francis’ visit

When Pope Francis set some hard, expected conditions for his three-day visit to Uganda, it was in keeping with the lifestyle for his time at the helm of the Catholic Church.

But for Uganda, and especially its security agencies, the  pope’s requests, including that he be allocated minimum security, present a nightmare in a country whose security apparatus is heavily militarised and whose enemies include the Al-Shabaab terrorist organisations.

So, as Ugandans, especially security agencies, prepare for the pontiff’s November 27-29 visit, we look at some of Pope Francis’s security mysteries, both at Vatican and abroad, since assuming office in March 2013.

Pope Francis’ unexpected promotion to the head of the Roman Catholic Church was met with a flurry of quick profiles. The world was fed with such information as the former archbishop of Buenos Aires being a Jesuit, that he lived in a small apartment and cooked his own meals, that he had a complicated relationship with Argentina’s former military dictatorship, and that he only had one lung.

But there was one thing that caught everyone’s eye and ear, the 76-year-old’s simplicity and desire to get closer to his flock – a resultant source of headache for his security detail.

It all started on the night of his election when he shunned the bulletproof papal Mercedes limousine and rode in a mini-bus with the cardinals who had chosen him to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

On assuming office, Pope Francis ditched the Popemobile that pontiffs had used since Pope John Paul II was shot in 1981. Francis started riding around in an open-air white Mercedes jeep – and frequently got out to greet the crowds.

He also used an open-topped vehicle rather than the enclosed, bulletproof version, for tours through crowds of the faithful in St Peter’s Square. He even offered to drive around Vatican City in a 1984 Renault 4 economy car with 300,000km (186,000 miles) on the clock, given to him by Fr Renzo Zocca, a 70-year-old priest from northern Italy.

“I know that something could happen to me, but it’s in the hands of God,” Francis once told journalists.

For daily activities, Francis preferred to use the papal apartment as his workspace, to receive official guests and handle papal business. Fox News reported the Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, saying the Pope would live in the antiseptic, institutional hotel with other guests, eating in a communal dining room and celebrating mass with Vatican groundskeepers, domestic staff, and other low-level workers, “for now”.

“We’ll see how it works,” Lombardi said.

The pope would later mix freely with crowds at churches and walk when his security detail wanted him to go by car.  Security officials told Italy’s La Stampa that they were “seeking to adjust to the new style,” but should Francis’ habits not “normalise” after his first days, “it will make everybody crazy.”

STUBBORN

Two years into his papacy, Francis has not stopped and has probably left some of his handlers crazy in the 15 states he has been to so far.  On a trip to Brazil, his first visit abroad, Francis climbed into a silver hatchback Fiat for the drive from the airport to downtown Rio de Janeiro.

Along the route, the vehicle became pinned between a bus and a crowd of well-wishers who were reaching into the car to touch the pope. He, however, left without a scratch.

In an earlier wide-ranging interview, the pope once told a community newspaper in Argentina: “I told the Lord, ‘You take care of me. But if your will is that I die or that they do something to me, I ask you just one favour: that it doesn’t hurt because I am a big wimp when it comes to physical pain.’”

When he went to South Korea, the pope again surprised many by choosing to travel to a place called Daejeon on a train instead of the pre-planned helicopter offered by the South Korean president. He wanted to be “in more touch with the people,” according to the official preparatory committee. Approximately 500 people travelled on the same train.

Pope Francis was later seen having a luncheon with children at the major seminary of Daejeon. Even when he went to the Philippines, the pontiff arrived in a Sri Lankan Airlines plane. He only boarded Shepherd One, an equivalent of the US president’s Air Force One, on his return to the Vatican.

For inland travels, the pontiff went for a white open-sided jeepney, the most common form of transport in Philippines. Philippines’ military chief, Gregorio Catapang, was quoted saying Pope Francis’ visit in the country with 75 million Catholics was “the greatest security nightmare” that they could ever have.

In fact, on one occasion during his three-day tour, the Pope caught his security off guard when he went out the side door of the Manila cathedral to meet children instead of the main entrance where members of the clergy and a throng of the faithful were waiting for him after a mass he celebrated there.

Despite this worry, the pontiff held successful gatherings, one of which attracted about six million believers in Manila. Up to 40,000 police, soldiers and volunteers are believed to have been deployed during his three-day visit.

During his three-day Turkey visit in November 2014, the pope travelled in a modest silver-coloured Renault Clio rather than the state-owned bulletproof Mercedes vehicle offered by the Turkish authorities.

Although public officials who made the arrangements for the pope’s visit asked all the ministries for a Renault Clio official car, they were told there was no such car because official cars are typically luxury brands such as Mercedes, BMW or Volkswagen.

Before the situation turned into a full-fledged crisis, the requested car was found assigned to a major general in the military. The pope used the major general’s Renault Clio during his visit.

It was the same story during his three-day trip to the Middle East in May 2014 when he insisted on using modest, ordinary cars to allow him to be as close as possible to the people. Known for its volatile security, most heads of state visiting the Middle East tend to use bulletproof cars, but not pope Francis.

On his recent trip to Paraguay, Pope Francis rode in a 1988 Peugeot, the same car used 27 years ago when St John Paul II visited as pope in 1988.

A BISHOP, NOT A KING

It was assumed that one of the things that might prevent Francis from rejecting “the pomp and ceremony that surrounds his 2,000-year-old office” is the name he inherited.

“His full title is ‘bishop of Rome, vicar of Jesus Christ, successor of St Peter, prince of the apostles, supreme pontiff of the universal church, patriarch of the west, primate of Italy, archbishop and metropolitan of the Roman province, sovereign of the state of Vatican City,’” Peter Stanford, a British journalist and former editor of the Catholic Herald magazine, told The Guardian newspaper. 

But Francis continued to go by ‘Bergoglio’ to his closest friends and signs his official correspondence ‘Francis.’ When it comes to how he sees his papacy, perhaps the biggest titular clue came when he was announced to the world as pope and said his fellow cardinals had given “Rome a bishop.” It is bishop of Rome that he has emphasised repeatedly ever since – not vicar of Christ, or any of his other official titles Stanford talked of.

Francis was dubbed the “slum pope” in his native Argentina for the amount of time he spent in dangerous areas while he was archbishop there. And in a speech that some say helped get him elected pope, the then Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio told colleagues that the church must “move toward the peripheries, not only geographic but also existential.”

Ignacio Cano, a researcher at the Violence Analysis Centre at Rio de Janeiro State University, said before Francis’ visit to Brazil that although authorities would like to surround the pope with protection, that “goes against the message he wants to impart, which is one of simplicity, openness and approximation.”

For the bigger majority, pope Francis’ decision to shun a major security detail and extravagant treatment for his visits exemplifies his view of what the Roman Catholic Church should be doing: Go out into the streets. Spread the faith. Recapture the dynamism that other denominations have been using to snap up souls.

USA’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan, however, summed up his concern about the Pope to AP: “I love him and I don’t want another conclave. We just finished one so we don’t need him to be hurt at all.”

Compiled from internet sources by Joseph Kimbowa.