Pope Francis’ upcoming autobiography, “Hope,” details two attempts on his life in 2021 during a historic trip to Iraq.
According to Politico’s translation of excerpts from “Hope,” which were published by Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper, the pope wrote that he learned from British security forces that a would-be female suicide bomber was heading to the Iraqi city of Mosul, where he was located at the time, to blow herself up. Likewise, Francis noted that “a van had also set off at full speed with the same intent.”
Neither attempt was successful, as “Iraqi police had intercepted them, and detonated them,” the pope wrote, per CNN, also citing the Corriere della Sera excerpts.
“That, too, was very striking to me. This, too, was the poisoned fruit of war,” he added.
Despite the region’s relevance to Christianity, the pontiff’s Iraq trip from March 5 to March 8, 2021, was considered risky because of the persisting COVID-19 pandemic and instances of violence throughout the battle-scarred country.
“Almost everyone advised me against that trip,” Francis reportedly wrote in “Hope.”
Francis’ visit marked the first time a pope went to Iraq, during which he visited six cities and multiple biblical locations and met with former Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, top Shiite Muslim cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and other officials. During the trip, he also called for peace and the end of the persecution of Christians.
Francis’ autobiography, the first ever from a pope, will be released in January.
According to the book’s publisher, Penguin Random House, it was written “over six years,” with Francis writing “candidly, fearlessly, and prophetically about some of the most important and controversial questions of our present times: war and peace (including the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East), migration, environmental crisis, social policy, the position of women, sexuality, technological developments, the future of the Church and of religion in general.”
