Pope Francis turns 88 this Tuesdayand celebrates it in privacy, working and without public events in the Vatican. Coinciding with this anniversary, his first-person account of an alleged attempted attack that he suffered in Iraq in 2021 has been published. It is an excerpt from the book ‘Esperanza. The Autobiography’ that will hit bookstores in mid-January.
«Almost everyone had advised me against the trip.which would have been the first of a pontiff in the Middle East region devastated by extremist violence and jihadist desecrations,” the Pope begins the story in a chapter titled “They wanted to kill the Pope.” He refers to his visit to Iraq, carried out from March 5 to 8, 2021, in which he was in Baghdad, Ur, Mosul, Qaraqosh and Erbil.
«Covid-19 had not yet completely loosened its grip, even the nuncio in that country, Monsignor Mitja Leskovar, had just tested positive for the virus and, above all, all sources highlighted extremely high security risks, to the point that bloody attacks had devastated even the eve of departure,” he recalls.
“I wanted to move forward”
These data were known at that time, as was the risk of making a trip to Iraq, since the agenda of meetings and travel of the Pope, his entourage and the journalists who accompanied him was public. «But I wanted to move on. I felt like I had to do it.», he adds, to justify why the trip was not cancelled.
He notes that “the wind of hate continued unabated” in that land and that “as soon as he landed” on March 5, he was warned of a specific threat. «The (Iraqi) police had alerted the Vatican Gendarmerie of information from the British secret services: a woman loaded with explosives, a young kamikazewas heading to Mosul to immolate himself during the papal visit. And a van had also left at full speed with the same intention,” he explains.
“The trip continued,” he adds without further explanation. In the story he describes his meeting with Al-Sistani in Najaf and the interreligious meeting in Ur. Also, that the sight of the destruction of Mosul “it hurt my heart”. This city “witness of the alternation of different civilizations and emblem of the peaceful coexistence of different cultures in the same country – Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Turkmens, Christians, Syriacs -, was presented as an extension of rubble, after three years of occupation by the Islamic State, which had turned it into its stronghold.
Francisco lived that visit as an “x-ray of hate, one of the most effective feelings of our timebecause it itself generates the pretexts that trigger it: politics, justice, and always, blasphemously, religion, become façade, hypocritical, provisional motivations.
“When I asked the Gendarmerie what was known about the two terrorists, the commander answered me tersely: ‘They are no longer there.’ The Iraqi police had intercepted them and detonated them. I was very impressed. This, too, was the poisoned fruit of war,” the story concludes.
birthday cake
Pope Francis, who was born in Buenos Aires on December 17, 1936, received his first birthday cake last Sundayduring the flight that took him back from Corsica, after his ten-hour visit.
He has no vacation plans. Precisely during that trip he said goodbye to the journalists with an expressive “See you next trip”, although he did not respond to those who asked him where it will be. One of the most important possibilities is a trip to the Canary Islands, combined with a stage in an African country.
It will not be easy to find dates, because in a week, on Christmas Eve, the holy door of St. Peter’s Basilica will open to inaugurate the Jubilee of the year 2025, dedicated to hope. The Jubilee will last until January 6, 2026, and specifically means that Pope Francis’ agenda of events will be multiplied by three.
He says that he faces it with “hope”, which is precisely the title of this autobiography, which is added to other autobiographical texts of the Pope already published, which will be published in mid-January.
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