There is no doubt that the gendarmes, acting as the Papal police and dealing with the protection of the territory of the state, have significantly increased the range of their activities since the creation of the Vatican City State on February 11, 1929. At that time, their competences covered the territory of not only the microscopic, smallest state body in the world, but also all extraterritorial zones, which include, among others, the summer residence in Castel Gandolfo or the palace on the Lateran or the basilicas of Our Lady Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls.
And, Valentino Pinci also joined such a gendarmerie (…) together with several colleagues, with whom he shared the next decades of service and extraordinary experiences with the Pope, in the Vatican and in apostolic journeys around the world.
– There were over a hundred of us in the gendarmerie in total. We worked a lot at the time. Theoretically, the primary service included six hours a day, but in fact it was much, much more. The Pope was indestructible. There were still a lot of meetings, audiences, celebrations in the Vatican Basilica and in other patriarchal basilicas, numerous ceremonies in other places, visiting parishes in the Diocese of Rome. We were always with the Pope. Shoulder to shoulder with the second formation responsible for his safety – the Papal Swiss Guards.
Magdalena Wolińska-Riedi “It happened in the Vatican”
Znak Publishing House. Kraków 2020
Pages: 166 – 167
