“That is also terrorism. The war that kills defenseless and unarmed civilians, even Caritas volunteers who distribute humanitarian aid, that relentlessly torments civilians, that reduces the population to hunger produces the same senseless terror.” Pope Francis has once again attacked the Israeli invasion of Gaza, in his new autobiography ‘Hope’, which goes on sale worldwide this January 16.
As in the book-interview published with the Vaticanist Hernán Reyes, in which he urged to investigate whether what happened in Gaza was “genocide”, in the conversation with the Italian journalist Carlo Muso, Bergoglio attacks “the shameful inability of the international community and the most powerful countries to put an end to this massacre, the wave of hatred has become a tidal wave of violence.”
Throughout the pages of Hope (Plaza and Janés), Francisco shows his pain for the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023: “For me it was twice painful: in that massacre I lost old Argentine friends who lived in a kibbutz on the border with Gaza “, points out the Pope, who adds that “to that disaster, to that barbarism, another, enormous one would later be added: the Israeli air raids, which would cause thousands of innocent deaths, especially women and children; and hundreds of thousands of evacuees, houses destroyed, people one step away from famine….”
“Mrs. Nadha Khalil Anton and her daughter Samar Kamal, who was a cook in the home of disabled children in the care of Mother Teresa’s nuns, were killed by an Israeli army sniper while they were on their way to the convent and trying to protect themselves. mutually. Others were killed in cold blood in the surroundings of the parish, a small Christian community that mourns the death of more than twenty of its members,” emphasizes Bergoglio, who is constantly in contact with the parish priest of Gaza, Gabriel Romanelli.
Bergoglio also recounts how, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he showed the Russian authorities his desire to travel to Moscow and meet with Putin. The response of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, was devastating: “He told me that it was not the time.”
Two attempted attacks
Among other confessions, Francisco recounts how he suffered two attempted attacks on his trip to Iraq, talks about his childhood in Argentina and his vocation to the priesthood, and reiterates again that he has “never” thought about resigning. But he is afraid, more than death, of pain. “I have only asked the Lord for one more grace: take care of me, whenever you want, but, You know, I am quite afraid of physical pain… So please, don’t let it hurt me too much.”
Francis also stops in the book to talk about a Church that welcomes everyone, “including divorced people, also homosexual people, also transsexual people.” “They are children of God! They can receive baptism under the same conditions as other faithful, and under the same conditions as others they can be accepted as godfather or godmother, as well as be witnesses at a wedding. “No law of canon law prohibits it,” says the Pope, who does not enter into the debate about whether or not they can take communion, or if they are allowed to enter seminaries, as the Italian Church has just accepted. And, he reiterates: “Homosexuality is not a crime, it is a human fact, so the Church and Christians cannot remain indolent in the face of this criminal injustice, nor be faint-hearted.”
In Esperanza, the pontiff remembers his childhood in Argentina. And he describes for the first time two tragic episodes from his adolescence: that of the classmate who committed a murder and who after being released from prison committed suicide and that of another well-known boy who killed his mother, EFE reports. Francis tells how he toured the marginal towns called ‘villas miseria’ in his country, and adds: “When someone says that I am a slum pope, I just pray that I will always be worthy of it.”
All information in www.religiondigital.org
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