ROME — An “unbalanced woman” jumped the barriers in St. Peter’s Basilica and knocked down Pope Benedict XVI as walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass, a Vatican spokesman said Thursday.
Television images showed a woman in red leap toward Benedict as he began to walk up the central aisle, as the police and bodyguards scrambled to the aid of the 82-year-old pope.
The woman also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, said the spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
Vatican police took the woman in for questioning, and Cardinal Etchegaray was taken to the emergency room for a checkup, the ANSA news agency reported. The woman did not appear to have “malicious intentions,” ANSA said.
It was not immediately clear whether she was the same woman stopped by the police last year after she attempted to lunge at the pope as he left the Basilica.
Source:The New York Times
Source:The New York Times
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