Pope Francis publishes his autobiography “Hope”

The imperative is not very common and is initially confusing: “Hope”. It is the title of Pope Francis’ autobiography, which goes on sale in more than eighty countries worldwide on Tuesday. Francis has been working on the book with co-author Carlo Musso since March 2019. It should actually have been published after Francis’ death, “but the anniversary announced for 2025 and the requirements of the time,” says Musso in his afterword, “have prompted the Pope to publish this precious legacy now.”

Apparently, the 88-year-old Francis is busy organizing his house and at the same time sorting out his spiritual estate. Just last December he “created,” as this process is called here, 21 new cardinals, bringing the proportion of cardinals appointed by Francis who are eligible to vote in the next conclave to almost eighty percent. The next papal election will therefore indirectly be strongly influenced by the incumbent pope.

He also issued new rules for future papal funerals. The ceremony should be simpler and more modest. Francis has already decided that he should not be laid to rest in or under St. Peter’s Basilica, but in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the papal basilicas in Rome. “The Vatican is my last place of work on earth, but not my place of residence for eternity,” it says in the autobiography.

Finally, the Argentine pontiff opened the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica three weeks ago, thus opening the Holy Year 2025, which will be entirely shaped by him. “Pilgrim of Hope” is its leitmotif – which in turn explains the title of the book.

A rebooking as luck

This begins with the emigration of the Bergoglios, the Pope’s ancestors, from Piedmont to Argentina. Fortunately, circumstances mean that the grandparents do not travel across the Atlantic on the “Principessa Mafalda” as planned. The “Mafalda” is shipwrecked off the Brazilian coast and the ship is called the “Italian Titanic”. But the Bergoglios have to rebook and travel to Argentina later. “This is why I am here today,” says Francis.

The descriptions of family life in Argentina are among the most readable passages in the book. The authors vividly tell of the family’s growing prosperity, of setbacks after the economic crisis of 1929, and later of life in the migrant neighborhood of Flores in Buenos Aires, where Jews, Muslims, but also revue dancers and middle-class people live next to and with each other. “I am a city dweller at heart,” wrote Francis about this time. Spanish and Piedmontese are spoken in the family, and the Italian roots and culture of Italy remain alive.

He learned the profession of chemical engineer, but, influenced by charismatic priests, he felt drawn to the church. He finally decides to join the Jesuit order, studies philosophy and theology and works, among other things, as a teacher. At an early age he became provincial superior of the Argentine Jesuits.

When Francis was in Rome as a possible successor to the resigned Pope Benedict XVI. is mentioned, rumors are making the rounds about the supposedly lax attitude of the church and Bergoglio towards the Argentine military dictatorship. This time is also touched upon in the autobiography. Francis portrays himself as a churchman who helps dissidents escape, hides them and is on their side. He uses a mass that he holds for General Videla’s family to ask the dictator questions about the disappearance of two Jesuit priests.

Francis is known in Rome for giving interviews spontaneously and sometimes without consulting the Vatican communications services, saying things that one would not necessarily expect from the papal mouth. For this reason, much of what is now in his autobiography has already been published on other channels and is no longer entirely new, including the account of the last conclave that made him pontiff.

The book still contains some nice details. He states that he was in no way prepared for an election. The name Francis seems to have occurred to him spontaneously; he gave the election speech on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica without a manuscript or preparation. He doesn’t want to wear a robe made of gold, and he rejects red shoes. «Red shoes? No, I have to wear orthopedic shoes anyway. “Unfortunately, I have slightly flat feet,” he writes.

It only becomes clear to him that he is seriously considered among the candidates when a cardinal asks him at lunch in the refectory: “Your Eminence, aren’t you missing a lung?” Only then did he begin to understand that it was serious. Apparently they wanted to exclude all risks before his election, including those of a health nature. Francis was able to reassure his worried colleague. Previously, only the upper part of one lung had been removed because he had cysts there.

Not the “military chaplain of the West”

Unfortunately, such detailed descriptions are missing in the second part of the book. Rather, what co-author Musso probably meant by the “requirements of the time” is presented here. They are answers to current ecclesiastical and political questions that shape Francis’ pontificate: how to deal with issues such as homosexuality and gender, the position of women or the synodality of the church and with theaters of war such as Gaza or Ukraine.

It gives the impression that Francis is concerned with clarifying misunderstandings – which he sometimes caused himself. Recently it has become increasingly unclear how the Pope positions himself on key issues. Now, with a view to Ukraine and Gaza, he says: “We do not confuse attackers and those attacked. We do not deny the right to self-defense: but we are convinced that war is never inevitable and that peace is always possible. He does not see himself as a “military chaplain of the West”, but as a shepherd of a universal church.

Of course, this does not hide the fact that the Holy See is currently not a player in either Ukraine or Gaza that could effectively mediate between the parties to the conflict. The book also bears witness to this – unintentionally. In both cases, Francis sidelined himself through clumsy statements – for example when he once indirectly demanded that Ukraine raise the white flag. But that too is probably part of this Pope’s legacy.

Pope Francis with Carlo Musso: Hope. The autobiography. Translated from Italian by Elisabeth Liebl. Kösel Verlag, Munich 2025. 384 pages, Fr. 35.90.