Big security challenge as Pope Francis visits US this week

WITH only a few days to go before Pope Francis’ visit to the United States on September 22-27, the country’s officials have expressed concern over his security. He is scheduled to attend three principal occasions – a joint session of the US Congress in Washington, DC, a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, and an open-air Sunday Mass to be attended by some two million people in Philadelphia.

We can expect the security to be tight at the US Congress, where all of the nation’s senators and congressmen will be attending, and at the White House where he will be received by President Barack Obama. We can also expect the tightest of security at the UN General Assembly headquarters, where about 170 world leaders are confirmed to attend. A much bigger problem arises at the open-air Mass outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, at the end of the World Meeting of Families in that city.

But the greatest concerns have been expressed for the Pope’s safety when he visits the site of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, which Middle East terrorists brought down with two hijacked airliners on September 11, 2001. The destruction of the twin towers was the greatest failure of American homeland security ever, with 2,996 dead, including the 19 hijackers, and some 6,000 others injured.

By some coincidence, the Pope will visiting the US in the same month as the World Center attack by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda. That group has since been largely decimated, with the elimination of its leader Osama bin Laden in a US Navy Seals operation in Pakistan in 2011. But it seems to have been replaced by new Islamic radicals, such as the Islamic State now fighting in Syria and Iraq, causing hundreds of thousands of Syrians and other refugees to seek asylum in Europe.

The US Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation disclosed that last month they arrested a 15-year-old youth who, apparently inspired by the Islamic State, was found to be planning an attack involving multiple firearms and explosives. His target was believed to be Pope Francis.

We too in the Philippines faced a big security problem when Pope Francis came to visit us last January. For we too have security challenges in Mindanao where our armed forces have faced Moro and other separatist movements for decades. But, in the face of all the big crowds wherever Pope Francis went, the papal visit came off as a great affirmation of faith, with none of our earlier fears and concerns to mar it.

We hope that his visit to the US this week will be a similarly successful one for Pope Francis. We are confident that all the security needs and problems will be met. And we pray that this papal visit will be, like his visit to us in January, an inspiring experience for the American people and for all people of goodwill around the world.