Enthusiasm abounds amid security precautions in Seoul

(Vatican Radio) In Seoul, security leading up to the Mass for the Beatification of the Korean martyrs led to road closures, barricades, and disrupted public transportation. But Seán Patrick Lovett reports the inconveniences haven’t dimmed people’s enthusiasm for Pope Francis:

Listen: 

“Thou shalt not cross the line” – that was the 11th commandment in Seoul on Saturday. And no one dared disobey it.

The security around this papal visit has been amongst the tightest ever seen – not least of all because (as we know) Pope Francis refuses point-blank to wear bullet-proof vests or to drive around in security vehicles that impede the personal contact with the people that has become his trademark. He also has a habit of deviating from predetermined itineraries and, basically, going wherever he feels like going.

People just love it. Security details just live with it.

Being responsible for Pope Francis’ safety means coming up with creative solutions that guarantee his personal protection while allowing him to engage in that authentic one-on-one contact which is so much part of his communications charisma.

It also means coordinating an immensely complicated security machine that includes the country’s armed forces, local police, anti-terrorist experts, the National Intelligence Service, and the Presidential Security Service – along with the Vatican’s own police force and the Pope’s personal security escort.      

Here in Korea, security measures for the Pope’s open-air Mass in Seoul, included roads closures, underground trains being rerouted, roofs and terraces in the vicinity being declared off-limits, plus the deployment of sharpshooters and some 30,000 police men and women in and around Gwanghwamun where the Beatification ceremony took place.

Anywhere else in the world, this kind of traffic disruption and urban inconvenience would be met by cries of complaint from the general populace.

Not so here.

Families not attending the Pope’s Mass wandered gleefully around the traffic-free streets, taking pictures and chatting to bored police officers manning the temporary barricades. Street vendors enjoyed a roaring trade. As one Korean teenager told me (proudly practicing his English and calling the Pope “Papà Francisco” – as in “Daddy Francis”): “He makes everything beautiful. He makes everybody happy. He makes me feel like I want to be a nice person”.

Making people feel happy and nice… Isn’t that what Daddy’s do best?