Cutting the Vatican Guard

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.

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