“I love punctuality, it is a virtue I have come to appreciate,” Pope Francis wrote in the fifth chapter of his autobiography, which will be published in 18 languages on Tuesday, adding that it is “good manners.” “It’s a sign of respect and a sign of respect for people,” he added. We’ll be there soon. ”
Unfortunately, as a newborn, Frances was delayed by a week and had to call the doctor, who sat on her mother’s stomach and “squeezed and jumped” to induce birth. It says that it started.
“And so I was born into this world,” Francis wrote.
Hope: An Autobiography by Pope Francis is a 320-page compendium of the Pope’s recollections and musings on the major social and political issues of our time, including climate change, poverty, immigration, arms control, and war. The request is made by the Holy See. English publisher Random House described it as a “historic publication” and “the first memoir published by a Pope.”
That’s not technically true. That honor went to Pope Pius II’s 15th-century chronicle, Commentary. It is a set of 13 books chronicling the life of Pope Pius II, considered the seminal text of Renaissance humanism.
Francis is also not the first pope to tell the story of his life. Joseph Ratzinger wrote his autobiography as a cardinal, and it was published in 1997, eight years before he became Pope Benedict XVI. He and his predecessor John Paul II co-authored books with journalists, but they were personal reflections rather than official papal documents.
But for readers, including Roman Catholics, “Hope” vividly recreates the colorful world in which young Jorge Mario Bergoglio grew up. His world was a zoo of colorful people, including immigrants from various countries and his “bag woman”, a prostitute. ” aunts and other memorable family members.
Those who closely follow Francis will notice that many of his views from his various encyclicals, weekly addresses at the Vatican, speeches during his travels, etc. are found in his autobiography. But “Hope” stands apart from the childhood events and encounters that shaped Francis’ thinking to this day.
Francisco’s unwavering support for immigration stems from his own background as the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, he writes. His aversion to war, he writes in “Hope,” “Everyone who makes war is evil. God is peace,” has its roots in his grandfather’s wartime experiences in World War I. be. “Nono portrayed the horrors of war, the pain, the horror, the absurd, alienating senselessness,” he writes. A left-leaning biomedical researcher he met before entering seminary “taught me how to think, to think about politics.”
This book contains many personal memories. As a young creative writing teacher, Francis wrote that her students nicknamed her “Kalucha” or “Babyface.” He recalls once helping the nearly blind Jorge Luis Borges shave. “He was an agnostic and planned to say the Lord’s Prayer every night and perform his last rites before dying, as he had promised his mother to do.”
Francis is no stranger to collaborating with journalists. A book about his life, based on interviews with Argentine journalist Sergio Rubin, was published while he was still Cardinal of Buenos Aires.
A few more things have happened since he became pope. Francisco, along with biographer Austin Ivery, wrote “Let Us Dream,” a first-person story that explores how crisis can be a catalyst for positive change during the coronavirus pandemic. This book was on the New York Times bestseller list. Last year, “life” is a book full of anecdotes written with Fabio Marchese Ragona, published all over the world and featured in the Times list.
Hope was six years in the making and has become one of the publishing world’s best-kept secrets. Francis originally intended to publish his autobiography posthumously, but last summer he changed his mind to publish it in time for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee, which occurs every quarter century.
Italian publisher Mondadori announced the book’s impending release at last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, sparking excitement, especially among Francis’ biographers.
Mr. Ivany said in an interview that the autobiography was an opportunity for Francisco to delve into episodes in his life that “biographers, including myself, have speculated about, discussed, and sometimes struggled to interpret.”
However, while the book is rich in anecdotes about Francisco’s childhood in the Buenos Aires area, including one that Mr. Ivany described as a “gem,” the book already contains much more than “well-known material” about Francisco’s later life. doesn’t offer much insight into his life.
For example, Francis has said little about his time in the Vatican. His comment that “the reforms of the Roman Curia were the most severe and for a long time there was the greatest resistance to change” does not provide any details about the struggles involved.
“The pope is the pope, and it’s great to see his reflections repackaged for a wide audience,” Ivany said, adding that the pope sees these books as “tools for evangelization.” He added that he believed that. However, he added that he was “frankly disappointed” to find that most of the original material was relegated to his childhood.
Perhaps the most newsworthy snippet of the book is Francis’ recollection of his 2021 trip to Iraq, which was published in excerpts in the Jesuit magazine America in December. Francis wrote that he survived. Two assassination attempts ended in failure.. later former governor of Nineveh denied that such an incident occurred. The Times also published an excerpt from his autobiography in December, which was about his faith in humor.
Gian Maria Vian, former editor-in-chief of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, praised the “many personal details” the book added to Francis’ biography, many of which were “not rosy.” He said it was written through “the glasses of a man.”
Francis co-authored the book with Musso, a former Mondadori publishing director who recently founded an independent publishing company. The idea took shape in 2019, and work began a year later.
“I was honored by his trust,” Musso said. “He didn’t want to make an autobiography to tell about himself; he wanted to make an autobiography to use his memories and his own stories to tell about all kinds of people, even the most difficult moments. I think it is.”
