First Swiss Guard with Filipino heritage sworn in

Shutterstock | R-R

John Burger - published on 10/09/20

Lt. Vincent Lüthi has a Swiss father and Filipina mother.

The Swiss Guard just got a little more diverse.

The Guard, the little “army” that guards the Pope, recently welcomed its first member who is partly Filipino.

Lt. Vincent Lüthi, the 22-year-old son of a Swiss father and Filipina mother, is one of the 38 new members of the corps who swore their oath in a ceremony in the Vatican October 4.

He grew up in Cugy, Switzerland, but his mother is from Santa Fe town on Bantayan Island in Cebu province in the Philippines.

Pope Francis met with the guards and their parents before the Sunday ceremony and thanked them for choosing to dedicate “a period of their youth in the service of the Successor of Peter,” according to CBCP News, a Church-based news agency operated by the Media Office of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. Members of the Swiss Guard must be Swiss, Catholic and top-notch soldiers, the website said.

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