Vatican City, May 6, 2016 / 02:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Every year on the Anniversary of the 1527 Sack of Rome, the new recruits for the Pontifical Swiss Guard swear an oath to protect and defend the Pope, with their lives if necessary. This year 23 young men joined their peers and predecessors in making that oath.

“You are witnesses of Christ – here in Rome, in your homeland of Switzerland and wherever you go,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, told the new guards May 6.