VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A 25-year-old member of the Vatican's elite police force died on Monday of gunshot wounds in an apparent suicide case, the Vatican said.
It was the worst incident of violence inside the Vatican since a triple murder-suicide in 1998, when a member of the Swiss Guard killed his commandant and his commandant's wife and then turned his gun on himself.
Alessandro Benedetti was found in a bathroom in the barracks of the Vatican Gendarmes with gunshot wounds in the early hours of Monday and rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died 1-1/2 hours later.
"The first indications are that the young man committed suicide," said a Vatican statement, adding that Benedetti had left a note which was with Vatican investigators. The statement offered no details about possible motives.
Benedetti joined the Gendarmes, who are in charge of the Vatican's security in which they are assisted by the largely ceremonial Swiss Guards, as a trainee in April.
"His behaviour had not previously given cause for concern", the Vatican said.
The Vatican said the selection process for the Gendarmes, who are recruited in Italy unlike the Swiss Guards, includes psychological screening for aptitude for firearms.
"The Holy Father (Pope Benedict) was grieved to hear this news and entrusts young Alessandro to God's mercy," said the Vatican.
In 1998, Swiss Guard Cedric Tornay shot dead commandant Alois Estermann and his wife and then shot himself, in what the Vatican termed a "fit of insanity" for being passed over for promotion. Tornay's family has contested that version.
Could this be a reason for the tragic event? This I dug up as a separate article.
AS late as a century ago, the Pope ruled over a vast domain and maintained his own army to preserve his temporal power. Today, the greatest threats to peace in the 108-acre Vatican City are unmanageable crowds of tourists or occasional cranks who throw rocks at the Pontiff. Accordingly, Pope Paul VI last week disbanded three of the Vatican's four corps of brightly uniformed guards because, he said, they "no longer correspond to the needs for which they were founded." As a result, if a latter-day Stalin were to ask scornfully how many divisions the Pope had, the answer would be none, only 59 men.
The three disbanded corps, totaling 702 men, were rich in history and tradition. The 59-member Papal Guard of Honor (formerly the Noble Guard) traces its ancestry back to 1485. In 1527, every member was killed defending the Vatican against the sack of Rome by Emperor Charles V. Another casualty was the 498-member Palatine Guard, dating from 1850. The usefulness of both groups had been reduced to ceremonial functions. The third disbanded corps, the Vatican Gendarmes, consisted of 145 armed and trained ex-soldiers and policemen, who were still performing very real guard duties.
The Pope's order leaves only the plumed, halberd-bearing Swiss Guards, a favorite of picture-snapping tourists, to patrol the venerable streets of the Vatican. Even the Guards, all Swiss Catholics and veterans of Switzerland's army, are a pale shadow of what they used to be. Founded in 1505 by Julius II, "the fighting Pope," 147 of the 189 Guards once died defending Pope Clement VII against 10,000 of Charles V's mercenaries. Because of recruiting problems, their numbers have dwindled to 59, and their functions have become largely ceremonial. In case of any real trouble, the once-mighty Vatican will have to call on Italian police for help.
Posted by: rg1283
Sounds like what a lot of College and Hospital Police Departments end up becoming when they get a new President.
Posted by: SOT
when they say WOUNDS v. WOUND...on a suicide, it makes me wonder.
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