Two suicide bombers targeted Pope Francis as he delivered a message of peace during a visit to Iraq but were foiled by British intelligence services, he has revealed.
Pope Francis became the first Catholic pontiff to visit Mosul in the war-torn country three years ago, in most likely the riskiest foreign trip of his 11-year papacy.
Writing in his upcoming autobiography, Hope, he claimed British intelligence informed Iraqi police of the planned bombings as soon as he arrived in Baghdad.
He recounted one of the suicide bombers was a woman who was heading towards Mosul to blow herself up during the papal visit. A truck was also “heading there fast with the same intention”, he said.
Pope Francis said he later asked Vatican security what had become of the suicide bombers.
“The commander replied laconically: ‘They’re no longer here.’ Iraqi police had intercepted them and made them explode. This struck me as well: Even this is the poisonous fruit of war.”
The visit went ahead as planned, albeit under tight security, and became one of the most poignant of all of Francis’s foreign trips. Standing in the wreckage of a Mosul church, Francis urged Iraq’s Christians to forgive the injustices against them by extremists and to rebuild.
Speaking from Baghdad’s presidential palace, he called for “an end to acts of violence and extremism” in the country.
“Iraq has suffered the disastrous effects of wars, the scourge of terrorism and sectarian conflicts often grounded in a fundamentalism incapable of accepting the peaceful coexistence of different ethnic and religious groups,” he added.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera ran excerpts of Hope: The Autobiography, written in conjunction with Italian author Carlo Musso.
The book, originally planned to be published after the Pope’s death, is coming out at the start of the Vatican’s big Holy Year, which Francis will officially inaugurate on Christmas Eve.
