REDIPUGLIA: Pope Francis confronts a piece of his own family history on Saturday when he visits a World War I memorial built amid battlefields where his grandfather fought in a fierce Italian offensive against the Austro-Hungarian empire—surviving to impress upon the future pope the horrors of war.
Francis' aim in recalling those who died in the Great War that broke out 100 years ago is to honor the victims of all wars, and it comes at a time when his calls for peace have grown ever more urgent amid new threats.
The pontiff will pray first among the neat rows of gravestones for fallen soldiers from five nations who are buried in the tidy Austro-Hungarian cemetery.
He then will travel a few hundred meters (yards) to Italy's largest war memorial, a grandiose Fascist-era monument to 100,000 fallen Italian soldiers, where he will celebrate an open-air Mass.
The visit, while well-timed to focus attention on new threats in the Middle East and Ukraine, is also infused with intensely personal meaning.
Francis' grandfather, Giovanni Bergoglio, was one of thousands of Italians who fought in the trenches near the Isonzo River, near today's border with Slovenia, in a campaign aimed at piercing the Austro-Hungarian defenses. The 12 battles are memorialized at the Redipuglia monument which was dedicated by Italy's Fascist government in 1938 on the eve of World War II.
“I have heard many painful stories from the lips of my grandfather,” the pope has said.
The elder Bergoglio, who was drafted at age 30 as Italy entered the war, took part in the Isonzo campaign, obtaining a certificate of good conduct and 200 lire at the war's end, according to documents discovered by the Italian bishops' conference's media outlets.
With postwar Italy's economy stalled, he emigrated to Argentina where the future pontiff—Jorge Mario Bergoglio—was born.
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