Pope's secretary visits Christmas Eve assailant

(AFP)
posted Jan. 3, 2010

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI's personal secretary has visited the woman who knocked the pontiff to the ground at midnight mass, the pope's spokesman said on Sunday.
Father Federico Lombardi said the pope's secretary Bishop Georg Gaenswein paid a visit to Susana Maiolo, who has a history of mental problems and is being held in a psychiatric unit outside Rome.

A report in Il Giornale daily newspaper said Gaenswein gave her a rosary, saying the pontiff had forgiven her for what she had done.

Maiolo, 25, leapt over a security barrier and bundled the pope to the ground at the Christmas Eve midnight mass in Saint Peter's Basilica. the rest