The autobiography by Pope Francis, translated by Richard Dixon

POPE FRANCIS’s Hope is not really a full autobiography, to stand alongside Peter Hebblethwaite’s magisterial biographies of John XXIII and Paul VI. The inside of the dust jacket more accurately calls it a “vivid memoir”. It is co-written by Carlo Musso. The book is actually created from conversations (presumably taped) with Pope Francis since 2019, published texts, and some private documentation and personal photos.

From time to time, the English reader without either Italian or Spanish will be puzzled by untranslated words such as desaparecidos, those who “disappeared” under totalitarian regimes. And there are occasional solecisms such as “theologist”. In a rush to publish, careful copy-editing should not be skimped.

This said, there is much to learn and enjoy in Hope. The structure of the book is, in one sense, chronological, in that we begin with Francis’s family background, coming from Italian emigrants to Argentina, and then proceed through childhood in a very cosmopolitan and interracial part of Buenos Aires; his student days and secular work; his time in the Jesuit novitiate, and then a bishop in Latin America, and finally his election to the papacy.

But, at each stage, there are meditations on contemporary issues anchored in memories of the past. So, at the very beginning, we are told of the tragedy of Italian immigrants drowned in a shipwreck, the Italian Titanic. His grandparents just missed this voyage. This prompts a meditation on the plight of migrants crossing the seas, and his visit to Lampedusa, and, later, an account of visits to refugee camps in Greece and elsewhere.

This pattern shapes the book. His passion for football inspires thought about teamwork. This is echoed in many places in his support for “synodality”. His friendship with Jewish families in Buenos Aires is background to a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. More strictly autobiographical is his personal account of the conclave at which he was elected Bishop of Rome (his preferred designation for his office). This includes the information that those against his election were speaking of Bergoglio as “having one lung missing”.

Earlier on, there is a moving account of the very painful removal of the upper lobe and three cysts. There is record of his openness to LGBT+ people, and, while this has been quoted before, it is useful to have it in print. Other themes include humour and play as human characteristics, and a joke by Archbishop Welby is quoted. Women, ranging from a pious grandmother, through deprived street girls, to religious Sisters, have been central. This includes his keeping “open” for study the diaconate for women.

A constant theme is the necessity for peace, with references to two world wars, the Ukraine, and Gaza. He is adamant about safeguarding issues and the wickedness of clerical abuse. He is repeatedly not afraid of change. Hope itself is recalled as the last thing in Pandora’s box from which all human evils were said to come. Towards the end, there is a simple testimony to his own ministry as just a single step towards the transformation of the Church from a defensive and self-referential institution into one of “service and communion”.

He is clear that the goal of ecumenism is not “they all must become Catholics.” At the end, he meditates on the inevitability of his own death, including specific instructions that he is to be buried in his favourite Roman church, Santa Maria Maggiore, rather than St Peter’s. When the time comes, it will be interesting to see if this is respected.

Readers who want a rounded and human picture of Francis will be well rewarded by Hope, despite its editorial idiosyncrasies. The important area that is not extensively covered is his time as a bishop in Latin America and the part played by its episcopate when the tide of Vatican II appeared to be ebbing. For a more strategic view of this, see Austin Ivereigh’s The Great Reformer. Francis has reversed the tide, not least by his emphasis on listening to the laity as opposed to a clerical elite. Newman is presumably smiling.

The Rt Revd Christopher Hill is a former Bishop of Guildford and an honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Gloucester.