The crowd eager to attend the All Saints' Day Mass had already started flooding into St. Peter's Cathedral Square like a tide.
Schmitz discarded the newspaper, and instead of squeezing into the surging crowd, he turned and walked towards the side door on the south side of the cathedral.
At the door, several Swiss Guards stopped him, loudly declaring, "Stop! You cannot enter here."
As an Austrian, Schmitz could barely understand Italian. He immediately took out a folded document from his pocket and handed it over.
"I am following the instructions of Assistant Priest Elcole to handle some matters and have come back late. You must let me in; I am due to hold the candelabrum in today's Mass. Oh, it's in the third row, fifth column."
He spoke in Latin.
He had never imagined before, that this thing he'd learned as part of a noble's education since childhood, would actually come into play one day.