Many years ago there was a joke doing the rounds of the pubs and clubs about two Irishmen on pilgrimage in Rome who ask at a bar near the Vatican what the Pope likes to drink.Upon being told he likes Crème de Menthe the two intrepid drinkers order two pints of the stuff.
Several hours and a lot of pints later, both are lying comatose in the street.
When they eventually come around one says to the other: "No wonder they carry him around in a chair!"
On a more serious note, the attack on Pope Benedict during the entrance procession of Midnight Mass by Susanna Maiolo, a mentally ill woman who once again, as she did last year, vaulted over the barriers before lunging at the Pope, poses serious questions about the Holy Father's safety.
Since 1970 alone there have been three documented attempted assassinations of the Pope. In 1970 Pope Paul VI was attacked by a man with a knife at Manila Airport, in 1981 there was the shooting of Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Square and only a year later, when the same Pope visited Fatima to give thanks for his survival, he was attacked yet again by a deranged knife-wielding priest.
Aside from Pope Benedict's annual Christmas encounters with Miss Maiolo there was the attempt by a German man to get into his Popemobile during an audience in 2007.
After these incidents and the rise of Islamic terrorism since 9/11 there have been many noticeable changes to the security surrounding the Pontiff.
Long gone are the days when it was deemed enough for Archbishop Marcinkus to stand next to the Pope as a kind of clerical "heavy".
On all his travels around the world now the Pope is accompanied by armed close-protection officers from the 130-strong Vatican Corps of Gendarmes who accompany him and work with the close-protection teams afforded by the Italian state and the particular host country.
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