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Fake bishop popes top secret Pope meeting
Brazen … Ralph Napierski, left, in his fake purple sash and short cassock, poses with Cardinal Sergio Sebastiana ahead of the secret meeting
A bogus bishop yesterday crashed a top secret meeting of Catholic cardinals – as senior clergy from around the world gather inside the Vatican to elect the next Pope.
Ralph Napierski, dressed in fake ecclesiastical robes with a purple scarf tied around his waist, shook hands and chatted with archbishops and cardinals as they arrived.
The imposter dodged Vatican security measures and sneaked into the closed-door conference.
But Swiss Guards soon frogmarched him out after noticing his suspiciously short cassock and unusual crucifix.
His brazen gate-crash bid came as an international array of cardinals gathered inside the Vatican for their first round of meetings to choose a new pope after Benedict XVI stepped down last week.
Napierski, an Italian said to be living in Berlin, Germany, told reporters outside that his name was Basilius and that he was a member of the Italian Orthodox Church, which does not exist.
Before he was rumbled, the fake holy man said Catholic bishops had made a mistake by moving priests accused of paedophilia around different parishes.
So far, around 103 of the 115 electors have arrived at the Vatican for the pre-conclave meeting, with another dozen en route.
The core agenda is to set the date for the papal conclave – when the College of Cardinals meet to elect the next pontiff – and put in place procedures to prepare for it.
These include closing the Sistine Chapel to visitors and de-bugging the Vatican hotel to keep the cardinals’ conversations secret.
The Catholic Church continues to be rocked by scandals inside and out of the Vatican – including the resignation of Britain’s Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who yesterday admitted that his sexual conduct had “fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal”.
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