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Chief of the Pope's Swiss Guard quits over snub
The commander of the Vatican's Swiss Guard has resigned after the world's smallest army was deprived of sole responsibility for protecting the Pope.
- By Malcolm Moore, The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008
- Published: 00:03 March 9, 2008
Rome: The commander of the Vatican's Swiss Guard has resigned after the world's smallest army was deprived of sole responsibility for protecting the Pope.
Colonel Elmar Theodore Maeder, 45, said he would seek to continue his career in Switzerland, but gave no further details. Sources at the Vatican said he was "fed-up". Colonel Maeder was drafted to Rome to revive the reputation of the Guard after a scandal in 1998, when a love triangle involving Alois Estermann, a commander, his wife, Gladys Meza Romero, and Cedric Tornay, a vice corporal, led to the deaths of all three.
Colonel Maeder was promoted to commander in 2002 and was in charge of re-training the guards, who now carry sub-machine guns as well as their traditional halberds. His departure came after Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican's secretary of state, proposed to give responsibility for security to the Vatican gendarmerie, a corps of police provided by the Italian state.
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