The first papal visit to Iraq could have ended badly, but a foiled assassination plot has prompted Pope Francis to write about the event in retrospect.
“Almost everyone advised me on that trip,” he wrote in his autobiography, reflecting on his visit to Mosul, Iraq, in 2021, when a tip from British intelligence made waves with the authorities and informed the Vatican’s military police of two threats.
According to Politico, the would-be suicide bomber headed to the city with the intention of blowing himself up. The second, the pope said, was a van with explosives that had attacked the same area “with the same objective.”
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Pope Francis delivered his speech after the General Audience on Wednesday in St. Peters Square in Vatican City. (Photos by Stefano Costantino/SOPA/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Despite the risks, the visit continued, with Francis insisting on visiting the region for its biblical, historical value and meeting local Christians.
Mina Al-Oraibi, editor-in-chief of the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National, wrote at the time that Francis had decided to undertake the 4-day trip to “strengthen the historical and environmental position of Christians in Iraq and the Arab world.”
Mosul was captured by the Islamic State group in 2014, but Iraqi forces ousted the extremists three years later, Politico reported, adding that evidence of conflict and occupation persisted in “much of the city, including its centuries-old Catholic churches,” which were left in ruins. .
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A member of the Iraqi army walks past a mural depicting Pope Francis waving next to the Iraqi national flag painted on a wall outside the Syriac Catholic Church of Our Lady of Deliverance in the Karrada district of the Iraqi capital Baghdad on March 1, 2021, in. preparations before the papal visit. (SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images)
Pope Francis later asked his security detail what happened to the bomb threats, when he learned they had been removed.
“The commander replied nonchalantly, ‘They are no longer here. The Iraqi police stopped them and blew them up,’ “he wrote, reflecting on this moment.
An autobiography titled “Hope” is expected to hit shelves next month, but Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published excerpts from the text on Tuesday, reports said.
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