NEWS STORY: Swiss Guard slaying shocks, saddens Vatican

c. 1998 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ An apparently disgruntled young member of the Vatican’s Swiss Guard _ the elite body charged with protecting the pope _ Monday night (May 4) shot and killed the force’s commander, the commander’s wife and himself, Vatican officials have announced. The killings came just hours after Pope John […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ An apparently disgruntled young member of the Vatican’s Swiss Guard _ the elite body charged with protecting the pope _ Monday night (May 4) shot and killed the force’s commander, the commander’s wife and himself, Vatican officials have announced.

The killings came just hours after Pope John Paul II named one of the victims, Col. Alois Estermann, commander of the 100-member corps established in 1506 and most visible for their colorful, ceremonial garb.


The Rev. Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman, said investigators recovered a service pistol from underneath the body of Lance Cpl. Cedrich Tornay, 23, indicating Tornay appeared to have killed the Estermanns and then taken his own life. Estermann, his Venezuelan-born wife Gladys Meza Romero and Tornay died in Estermann’s apartment within the tightly guarded walls of the Vatican city-state.

Vatican officials said the Estermanns were each shot twice and Tornay once.”It was a fit of madness in a person with very peculiar psychological characteristics,”Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said Tuesday.”The facts probably will not change,”he added.”I would say that it is now much more than a hypothesis that (it was) a moment of madness.” Navarro-Valls also described Pope John Paul II as”visibly sad”when told the news. Only hours earlier, John Paul had elevated Estermann to commander of the Swiss Guard.

A swearing-in ceremony for Estermann, who had accompanied John Paul on more than 30 trips and had tried to shield the pope during the 1981 assassination attempt on the pontiff in St. Peter’s Square, had been scheduled for Wednesday. It would have been part of the Vatican’s annual ceremonies to honor 147 Swiss Guards killed protecting Pope Clement VII during the sack of Rome in 1527 and to swear in 40 new recruits and their new commander.

Instead, the Estermanns’ funerals will be held Wednesday.

Vatican sources said Tornay had left a letter before the killings Monday night, and they said it is believed he was angry over a letter of reprimand he had received from Estermann. The contents of the letter have not yet been disclosed.

Violence has touched the Vatican many times over the centuries, most recently in January when a nobleman, who serves at the papal court, was bludgeoned to death in his Rome apartment in what appeared to be one of a series of homosexual murders.

But nothing like the shootings of Estermann, his wife, and Tornay has breached the Vatican walls in living memory, Vatican officials said.

The last recorded murder within the Vatican enclave was the assassination of Count Pellegrino Rossi, prime minister to Pope Pius IX, in 1848 during the political upheavals that led to the fall of the papal states and the unification of Italy.


John Paul sent a telegram to Estermann’s parents, Alois and Annemarie, expressing his”deep sorrow”over the deaths.

Navarro-Valls also said a Vatican magistrate will lead the investigation and the Vatican does not plan to call in Italian authorities on the probe. The Vatican ordered its pathologist to carry out immediate autopsies.

The personal guard of the pope since 1506, the troop of 100 men is known as the world’s smallest army. Recruits are Swiss-born Roman Catholics under 30 and at least 5-foot-8-inches tall. They wear Renaissance uniforms designed by Michelangelo and usually are armed only with halberds and, in recent years, tear gas.

But their job is more than ceremonial.

Estermann, a native of the Swiss canton of Lucerne, joined the elite Swiss Guard in 1980 at 18. He was the Swiss Guard who literally leaped to the aid of John Paul II on May 13, 1981, when Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca shot and wounded the pope during an open air audience in St. Peter’s Square.

In an interview with the Rome daily Il Messaggero three hours before his death, Estermann recalled the day the pope was shot.”Like any man entrusted with the security of an important person, I had often imaged situations like that so that I could react immediately. That afternoon I was directly behind the pope’s jeep. As soon as I heard the shots, I jumped on the jeep to protect him.”Unfortunately, there is no way of heading off someone who fires in the middle of such a big crowd. That’s why our most important job is prevention.” Although Estermann had been acting commander of the Swiss Guard since the resignation of his predecessor late last year, the news of his promotion to commander stirred some public controversy in Switzerland because the post has always been reserved for a member of the nobility. Estermann’s father is a farmer.

Estermann, who was highly qualified in both the military and theological spheres, told Il Messaggero he could have earned double the Swiss Guard salary at the equivalent rank in Switzerland. But, he said,”It is a sacrifice that I gladly make to serve the Holy Father.” Before joining the Swiss Guard he served in Switzerland’s army. He spoke five languages, and in 1995 he received a degree in cultural theology from the Cayman Institute in Rome.


DEA END POLK

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