Pope Francis welcomes new Swiss Guards recruits

12 May 2017
Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv with two Swiss Guards at the Vatican. Image: Diocese of Parramatta.

Each year on May 6, the new recruits for the Pontifical Swiss Guard are sworn in at an impressive, and ancient, ceremony in the San Damaso Courtyard of the Apostolic Palace. The forty new Swiss Guards are the first group of recruits to go through the new model of training, which includes a month of instruction at the famous Swiss Guards’ school at Isone in the canton of Ticino before beginning their courses at the Vatican.

Ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, the new recruits, with their families and friends, and the other members of the Swiss Guard, were received by Pope Francis at an audience in the Sala Clementina.

The presence of so many visitors from Switzerland, the Pope said, “manifests the affection of Swiss Catholics for the Holy See, Christian education, and the good example through which the parents have transmitted to their children the faith, the value of pertaining to the Christian community, and the significance of ecclesial service.”

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Pope Francis recalled that the ceremony takes place on the anniversary of the Sack of Rome, when 147 Swiss Guards gave their lives to defend the Pope. Today, the Holy Father said, the Swiss Guards “are not called to this heroic offering of your physical life, but to another sacrifice no less arduous: to serve, that is, the power of the faith.” This, he continued, “is an effective barrier to resist the various forces and powers of this world, and above all he who is ‘the prince of this world,’ ‘the father of lies,’ who ‘goes about like a lion, seeking someone to devour.’”

This story first appeared in Vatican News, to continue reading the full article please click here.

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