I don't know if the Catholic Church is on high alert because it's busy season, a papal year of mercy, or increased terrorist threats - but I find it sad to arrive at sites and find everything barricaded and protected by security scanners and armed guards. Just 2 years ago, this was not the case. I loved seeing churches open and easily accessible without barriers tainting the view or hindering entrance. The next time a pope declares some sort of holy year - I may skip Italy until it's over. Italy is swarming with tourists like me and pilgrimage folks. I prefer less busy times.
An aside - June 2 is Italy's "Independence Day". It's a great time to see the parade from Colosseum to Victor Emmanuele Monument. The fighter jets flew over head and let out streams of orange, white, and green smoke for the flag.
Posted by
Firenze, Italy
1703 posts
Actually it is not the church barricading, it is the government that is afraid of being involved in a terrorist attack to a major catholic church and dispatches guards to catholic sites. Look at the soldiers armed with machine guns in front of Florence Cathedral. Even in the case of a terrorist attack, what would they be doing with their machine guns? Would they shot machine guns in the middle of crowds?
Actually there are not so many pilgrimage folks around; much less than expected. The terrorist threat is working anyway.
Posted by
OP
1941 posts
Thank you for your response and the heads- up as we travel to Florence next. There are different aspects to protection. Prevention is probably the first by stopping weaponry from entering a church first. Then, vigilance. The guards will remove suspicious persons before anything happens. Next level would probably be hand cuffs, pistols and knives. The automatic weapons would be an absolute last resort. I agree that guards are not going to open fire in a crowd except under extreme rules. The high powered rifles may be for intimidation purposes. It works for me!
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
16538 posts
Barb (or Rob), some specific threats were detected by intelligence last year for multiple sites in Italy thus the additional security. There were similar threats picked up on in 2014, and I'm quite sure there may be others which haven't been reported to the public. Those plus the sad events in Paris and Brussels has the authorities taking more precautionary measures than in the past. I don't imagine this is going to change, either.
But aside from Italy, heavily armed military personnel were present all over Paris 7 years ago when we were there so this sort of thing isn't unique to Rome, Florence, etc.