Tight security for Pope's Lourdes visit
Nearly 3,000 security officers and a mounted police squad will be patrolling the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, during this weekend’s visit by Pope John Paul II.
Sixty police officers will assure close surveillance of the pontiff, who will be accompanied to France by four Swiss Guards and two Vatican officers, said Michel Bilaud, prefect of the Hautes-Pyrenees region in south west France.
Overall, about 2,700 were called in to patrol the town near the Pyrenees Mountains today and tomorrow.
“The measures put into place are the same as those used whenever there’s a gathering of hundreds of thousands of people whether it’s a sporting event, a cultural event, a musical event or a religious event,” Bilaud said.
Lourdes is home to about 15,000 people, but Roman Catholic officials have said that some 300,000 pilgrims were expected to flock to Lourdes over the weekend. That is 10 times the number usually present for the annual celebration each August 15 of the Assumption, the feast to celebrate the Catholic dogma of the Virgin Mary’s ascent into heaven.
Each year, six million pilgrims visit Lourdes, site of a shrine associated with miraculous cures.
No specific threats have surfaced and the risk level for ”Vigipirate” - France’s special security system against terror attacks – will remain at orange, the second lowest of four levels, Prefect Bilaud says.
