Woman knocks Pope down at Christmas Mass

Vatican City: A woman the Vatican described as unstable jumped over a barricade, lunged at Pope Benedict and dragged him to the floor at the start of his Christmas Eve mass in St Peter's Basilica.

The 82-year-old pope was apparently not harmed and went on to finish the two-hour service late on Thursday, but an elderly French cardinal in the papal procession fell to the floor and was taken to hospital with a broken leg.

Television pictures showed the woman, dressed in a red top, jumping over the barricade and hurling herself at the pope, provoking screams from members of the congregation.

The woman grabbed the pontiff's vestments as she was tackled by a security guard and both she and the pope then fell to the marble floor.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the woman, who he described as "unstable," was the same person who tried to jump a barricade to get close to the pope at last year's Christmas Mass.

The Pope, dressed in gold and white vestments, was helped up by security men and after a few seconds continued the procession up the centre aisle to celebrate the Mass. He seemed calm and unfazed during the rest of the ceremony.

But French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, 87, who has been in frail health recently, fell to the floor and was taken away in a wheelchair. He suffered a broken femur, Lombardi said.

The incident in St. Peter's Basilica raised fresh questions about security for the pontiff, however, after officials said the woman involved had jumped the barrier at the 2008 Midnight Mass in a failed bid to get to the pope. She even wore the same red-hooded sweat shirt.

The Vatican identified the woman involved in Thursday night's incident as Susanna Maiolo, 25, a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems who was immediately taken to a clinic for treatment. Interior Ministry officials said she lived in Switzerland and the ANSA news agency said she had travelled to Rome specifically for the Mass as she did last year.

First serious security breach for Benedict

There have been relatively few security breaches in Benedict's pontificate, which began in 2005. In 2007 a German man jumped over a barricade in St Peter's Square as the pope's jeep was passing during a general audience and tried to board the vehicle.

The most serious attack on a pope in the Vatican came in 1981 when Turkish gunman Ali Agca, shot and nearly killed Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Square.

Thursday's incident, which left Vatican security guards visibly shaken and bishops stunned, happened at the start of a Mass at which Benedict led the world's some 1.1 billion Roman Catholics into Christmas.

It again raised the question of how vulnerable the pope can be if he wants to maintain contact with the public.

"It's surprising that it happened inside St Peter's, because the security there has changed a great deal in recent years and is much more tight than it used to be," the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, leader of Catholics in England and Wales, told the BBC.

"But there it is, I'm sure those arrangements will be reviewed and greater care will be taken," he said.

While visitors to St Peter's Basilica must pass through metal detectors and spot checks, security once they get inside is relatively light. Vatican security is shared by a police force and Swiss Guards.

For the first time in recent memory, the Christmas Eve mass started two hours before midnight in order to give the pope more time to rest before Friday's main Christmas event at noon (1100 GMT)

In his homily to more than 10,000 people inside Christendom's largest church, the pope urged the faithful to rediscover the simplicity of the nativity message.

He recounted the traditional Christmas story of Christ's birth in a manger in Bethlehem and urged Catholics to put aside the complexities and burdens of daily life and rediscover the path to God.

"We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and life and rediscover the path to God.

"We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and occupations that totally absorb us and are a great distance from the manger," he said.

"In all kinds of ways, God has to prod us and reach out to us again and again, so that we can manage to escape from the muddle of our thoughts and activities and discover the way that leads to him," he said.

Benedict on Friday delivers his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" message to the city and the world from the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica to crowds in the square below.