Pope Francis' memoir: Laments, and hopes, for the world

At times, when the author of "Hope" writes of sweeping away the courtly culture in the Curia and elsewhere, he sounds like a young Catholic revolutionary declaring war on tradition. He reminds us that the Catholic Church is not a court, not a place of nepotism, and certainly not the highest court of an absolute monarchy.

But, of course, we are not talking about a revolutionary. The author of this book is 88 years old, lives in the Vatican, and is the leader of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis, who has now been head of the Church for almost 12 years, has published his autobiography. It is a book full of memories and visions, a tale of almost tender sadness and of heartfelt affinity for all things human, of youthful anger and great hope.

This is the first time that the head of the Catholic Church has published such a personal work during his lifetime. According to the publisher, the 300-page work has been translated into dozens of languages and will go on sale in around 100 countries worldwide.

Holy Year 2025

In the book's epilogue, co-author Carlo Musso, who has been working on the book with Francis since 2019, explains that it was originally Francis' wish for his autobiography to be published after his death. However, the Holy Year 2025 and the challenges of current times prompted him to publish earlier. The motto of this Holy Year is "Pilgrims of Hope," which, given the book's title, makes this memoir into a kind of reading companion. Musso writes: "Onward! A man born in 1936 who, if he looks back, it is only to cast his eye even farther forward."

Francis addresses many urgent issues of our times and reiterates some of his well-known talking points: About why the economy "kills," or how the world is already slipping inch by inch into a third world war; that too many people still see migration as an "invasion" or how human beings are being sent back and forth like ping-pong balls. As a South American, he refers to Europe as the "old continent" and for him, the refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, which he has visited twice, represents the "shame of the European Union."

He also laments the global catastrophe of climate change and the destruction of ecosystems. There is no more time to lose, he says. He condemns Russian aggression in Ukraine, Hamas terrorism ("barbarism," "slaughter"), and the war in Gaza. He describes some of Israel's military actions as "terror."

And, of course, Francis addresses the state of the Church. "The pain of the victims is a lament that rises to heaven," he writes at one point. But then only spends a few more lines addressing this now international scandal.

Francis speaks out against ecclesiastical traditionalism, which, he says, turns the liturgy into a form of ideology. He writes of a display of clericalism and costuming. And he mentions the debate that has been raging for years on the ordination of women as deacons, calling it an open question that still requires thorough discussion.

The pope deplores deaths in Mediterranean

But, overarching these buzzwords and contentious points, the book itself has a grand narrative about people and the human condition, and those who have inspired his hope. This story begins at the beginning of the 20th century in Piedmont, northern Italy, where the roots of his family begin and from where they emigrated to Argentina. The ship that the grandparents and their son — the father of the future pope — were supposed to take from Genoa to Latin America sank, taking hundreds of people to their deaths.

It is this tragedy that prompts Francis to talk about his first visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa and the countless deaths of refugees in the Mediterranean. He laments what he calls the "globalization of indifference," and the closing of European borders. He implores us: "People cannot and must not let their minds and hearts entertain the idea of seeing men, women, and children drowning with impunity in the Mediterranean, again and again, and yet again. They cannot allow themselves to think that problems and difficulties are resolved by building walls."

Family memories of war, criticism of the arms trade

There is a continual pattern that weaves together family and personal history and tragic global events. From his grandfather's memories of war, Pope Francis turns to today's conflicts and arms industry. The weapons with which wars are fought "are produced in entirely different regions — in those same regions that then refuse and turn away the refugees who have been generated by those weapons and by those conflicts."

He goes into detail about the formative years of his childhood and youth and early times of serious illness. Starting with an early story of infatuation, he moves into a strange and mysterious moment one morning in the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires in 1953 that drew the 26-year-old into the Catholic Church. It was the moment he knew that he would become a priest.

He then discusses the civil war and military dictatorship in Argentina, a time of suffering and loss. "They were terrible years," he writes, with "thousands of murders, tortures, disappearances." Many priests, even bishops, were also killed. At the same time, the pope admits that the Church at that time was not without its dark side. That is why, he says, he ordered the opening of the relevant church archives on becoming pope.

In ecclesiastical language, the story that Francis tells is his "theology of the people." His personal profession of faith — a central, graphically highlighted text in the book — fits in with this, and functions as a personal testament.

Shaken by people's suffering

For Francis, the most important figures in his grand narrative are not the powerful, but people who have been through terrible suffering. In these moments, Francis sounds like a pastor shaken by the pain of others.

He quotes those he met on his most recent trip to Africa in 2023, including a young girl and others from Congo. "A compendium of horror, rape, destruction, pillage, indescribable brutality," he writes. "I am shocked, I remain in silence before "such an abyss of pain." He also describes his encounter with a concentration camp survivor during a visit to Auschwitz in 2015.

He talks in detail about his encounters with Nadia Murad, a young Yazidi woman whom he first met in 2017 and who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018. He was moved by her fate, which is typical of many Yazidi women, a path of suffering involving abduction and rape. He describes how her story influenced his decision to travel to Iraq.

"I encountered so many courageous testimonies during that journey. So many saintly people that live next door …. As long as I live, Iraq will always remain with me," he writes.

Such people, Francis concludes, give him hope. People who, even in the midst of war and despair, do not give up. He tells us that there can be no future if it is not rooted in realism, in reason, in the actions of those who sow the seeds of peace and hope.

This article originally appeared in German.

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