Vatican's Swiss Guard keys into 21st century

The Swiss Guard, whose members in their Renaissance uniforms make a picturesque show of protecting the Pope and the few hundred other residents of Vatican City, has entered the modern world, by courtesy of the US company Motorola.

The Swiss Guard, whose members in their Renaissance uniforms make a picturesque show of protecting the Pope and the few hundred other residents of Vatican City, has entered the modern world, by courtesy of the US company Motorola.

The electronics giant has provided the one hundred guards with laptops and personal digital assistants with wi-fi (wireless computer networking technology), enabling them to prevent vehicles with unauthorised number plates getting into the grounds of the city state. The guards are guinea pigs in a trial for possible use of wi-fi in other situations.

The new technology is one more weapon in an increasingly rich network of security systems deployed by the Vatican to protect Pope John Paul II, who has already survived one assassination attempt.

Surveillance cameras are posted at all entrances to St Peter's Square and other public entrances to the Vatican, while pilgrims must pass through metal detectors before entering the basilica. At Easter, overflights were banned as an extra precaution.

But according to author John Follain, who spent three years scrutinising the guard for his book City of Secrets, the new devices will do nothing to address the basic weakness in the Vatican's security system. "The Swiss Guard are not up to protecting the Pope," he said yesterday. "They do not have adequate training to resist terrorists. Inside the Apostolic Palace, where the Pope and his aides live and work, firearms are kept on a different floor from the Pope, and locked up in a cupboard."