{"id":61734,"date":"2025-09-13T13:46:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/61734\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T13:46:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:46:06","slug":"pope-leo-recounts-being-attacked-by-man-in-ireland-in-resurfaced-video-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/61734\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo recounts being attacked by man in Ireland in resurfaced video \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/pope-leo-xiv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/pope-leo-xiv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pope Leo XIV<\/a> said he was physically attacked during a visit to Ireland before his appointment as pontiff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The pope was serving as bishop Robert Prevost when the claim was made at a conference in Peru in 2019. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Outlining the incident in a resurfaced video from the event, the then-bishop said he had \u201cnever been physically attacked as I was in Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cNever in my life, anywhere in the world, have I been physically attacked as I was in Ireland, for just going out on the street.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said he had to be rescued by an Augustinian priest, who witnessed the assault.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cA man passes by, he looks at me [and says] \u2018you\u2019re a priest\u2019 \u2013 and he starts attacking me. Fortunately, another Augustinian, who is twice as big as me, came to defend me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">He said he believed there was a \u201cpain and anger\u201d from the man who attacked him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI don\u2019t know if he was a victim or had lost faith in the church, I have no idea what happened to him. But I truly believe it is a very important factor in the experience here in the church as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">He did not identify when the attack took place but he is known to have twice visited Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The first visit took place in June 2005 for the anniversary of his Augustinian order in various parts of the country. The second took visit place two years later. The pope\u2019s comments indicate the incident took place in 2007, during this second visit to Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">He noted a \u201cradical\u201d shift in Irish attitudes in response to multiple emerging child-abuse scandals involving the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/catholic-church\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/catholic-church\/\">Catholic Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">\u201cI have never seen such a radical change and rapid change as we are experiencing in Ireland, especially because of this scandal,\u201d he told the audience. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWhere before, around 2005, you could go to Ireland and if you were a priest people almost wanted to carry you on their shoulders. And I\u2019m not exaggerating much, maybe a little, but it was incredible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The conference at which he made the comments was dedicated to \u201cpromoting a culture of prevention and care in the context of sexual abuse in the church\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo XIV said he was physically attacked during a visit to Ireland before his appointment as pontiff.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,2512,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,2515,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-61734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-catholic-church","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}