Pope’s WWI tribute will be infused with personal ties

Pope Francis will confront 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. The pontiff’s visit to the Great War memorial commemorates 100 years since its start, and 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 metres to Italy’s largest war memorial, where he will celebrate an open-air Mass.

I have heard many painful stories from the lips of my grandfather.

Pope Francis

The Pope’s grandfather, Giovanni Bergoglio, was drafted at age 30 as Italy entered the First World War. He obtained a certificate of good conduct and 200 lire at the war’s end. With postwar Italy’s economy stalled, he emigrated to Argentina where the future pontiff — Jorge Mario Bergoglio — was born.Just two levels up from the altar where Francis will say Mass, the name of a fallen soldier named Adolfo Bergoglio is engraved in a wall. Nardin, the local priest, said he is not believed to be related to the pope. But World War I historian, Col. Lorenzo Cadeddu, who has found two Bergoglios listed among the Italian casualties of World War I, said it remained a possibility.

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