SWISS GUARDS ENROL

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29778, 22 March 1962, Page 13

SWISS GUARDS ENROL

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, March 21.| An advertisement asking for applications to join the Vatican’s Swiss Guards which recently appeared tn Swiss newspapers, has had good results, says the New York “Herald Tribune's” Rome correspondent. Fifty youths applied for the 21 vacancies required to be filled to bring the corps up to its full strength of 100. The correspondent said that the advertisement was a novelty, and perhaps without precedent, but it was needed because of unusual conditions. The first Catholic Ecumenical Council of

■this century will begin on November 11 at the Vatican, and a strong corps of Swiss troops will be needed. “To some extent there is a financial problem, too,” the correspondent said. “The colourful bodyguards* of the Pope are paid very little as. indeed in general, are all people at the Vatican and in Rome the pay is only around £36 monthly and from that £l6 is subtracted for food and lodging. Any of the youths could do far better financially at home.

“Few of the guards sign on again after serving for two years, but replies to the advertisements showed that youths in the Catholic cantons of Switzerland still have a keen interest in serving

in the Pope's Corps, at least for the minimum period. “The Swiss Guards are known to tourists for their striped yellow, red and blue costumes, designed by Michelangelo, for their medieval halberd spears, and for the six-pound steel helmets and the 151 b breastplates they wear at Papal ceremonies.

“AU are veterans of the Swiss Army, and although aU their work in recent years has been ceremonial, they are serious-minded bodyguards, ready to go into action in defence of the Pope if need be, and not just with halberds. The guardsmen have automatic weapons and machine guns in their arsenal and practice on their guns twice a year.”