Transcript of Pope Francis reveals he was almost assassinated in Iraq | BBC News

Pope Francis has revealed in his forthcoming autobiography that he was targeted by suicide bombers during his visit to Iraq, but was saved by a tip-off from British intelligence. The attacks were planned in 2021 during his visit to Mosul where Iraqi Christians had been killed or driven out by Islamic State Fighters. According to the intelligence, a woman carrying explosives was intending to blow herself up during the papal visit, and a truck was also on its way with the same intent. The pope said he was told of the planned attacks as soon as he flew into Iraq, but it went ahead the visit anyway. Let us speak to father Benedict Healy.

He's the founder of nasaarean.org. He's a Catholic priest who was worked and visited Iraq many times. Thank you very much for being with us, father. The the details of this are quite extraordinary because the pope was told on the Vatican flight over to Iraq that this was a possibility, and yet it still went ahead despite the concerns of the Vatican the Vatican guards. It it shows what a brave move it was on the part of pope Francis.

Well, he knew, I think, from the very beginning that he was going to a very dangerous place. We know that the Christians had been driven out of the Nineveh plain where Mosulists in, August of 2014 and had been heavily persecuted, many, many killed. ISIS Mosul was the capital of the caliphate. That's where, al Baghdadi proclaimed the caliphate. So it was always going to be a rather dangerous situation to be in, but this new revelation of the plot makes it even clearer how how he was putting his life in great danger to come and support the Christians.

Yeah. A day after the visit, he he actually he says in the book that he asked the head of his squad of gendarmes what had become of the suicide bombers, and the commander responded laconically, they are no longer here. So clearly, they've been in intercepted by the Iraqi police. What did he say or what did he say publicly about the visit when he came back from Iraq?

He was there really to show support for the Christians because I've been there since 2015 visiting, when ISIS was just very, very close to where all the Christians had been driven out from. And many of them felt during those years that they'd been neglected by certainly by the the West, but also to a certain extent by the church itself, including the pope. And so I think he he went really to show that they hadn't been forgotten. The the Christians in the Middle East have been there since the beginning and, are really a very persecuted minority now. And so he was there to support them to show that the church in the West really did care, and and they really appreciated that.

They perhaps felt it was a a little late in coming, but they really appreciated it.

Yeah. There were, at 1 time, around a 1000000 Christians living in Iraq. I think that number has diminished to only a couple of 100000 now, maybe 2 or 300000. So it was an important visit, Ali. And it was 1 actually that that pope John Paul had been warded off when Saddam Hussein was still there.

He he didn't travel.

It's that's true. This this was Saddam went. And then, of course, yes, the horror was unleashed from 2003 on for the Christians. The persecution wasn't just ISIS. People Forget that the the persecution and the horror began really from the fall of Saddam all the way up up and then got much, much worse during the the time of ISIS.

And, of course, it's still happening all across the Middle East. Christians are always at least second class citizens, if not actively persecuted.

Yeah. The same happened, of course, in in Syria. Where have they gone? Where where has that diaspora gone to?

Well, many went into the the the camps in places like Jordan and Turkey. Some have returned, not nothing like the amount that were there before. Then, of course, various countries in the west took them, Australia, Canada. Not, unfortunately, very many in Britain. Not very many in the United States under both Obama and Trump.

Christians were struggled because they often had to go through the UN camps in places like Turkey and felt a sense of discrimination. But there'll always be a minority. The Christians will not be driven out of the cradle of Christianity, which is the whole Middle

East. Well, the book, Hope, was originally planned to come out after Francis's death, but we're told that it it will be set for release in January, to mark the holy Catholic year of jubilee in 2025. So plenty more details to come out of that, no doubt. Father Keeley, thank you very much for coming on the program.

Thank you, Christian.

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