04/15/2024

Pope Francis (A Good Life) provides a plainspoken overview of how some of the most significant events of the 20th and early 21st centuries shaped his life and morals. Among other episodes, he examines how the news from Nazi Germany he heard during his childhood in Argentina awoke him to “the persecution of Jews”; remembers watching the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, a recollection that leads him to call for Christians to build “bridges instead of barriers”; and suggests that the events of September 11 offer a lesson in the importance of decrying “the use of the name of God to justify slaughter.” Elsewhere, Francis covers the creation of the EU, the 2007–2008 Great Recession, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite a tendency to meander (as when his recollection of the 1969 moon landing awkwardly launches into a critique of technology’s ills), readers will be fascinated by the insights into how these historical events influenced a transformative pope who broke with his more conservative predecessors by recognizing and blessing same-sex civil unions and entertaining the possibility that atheists could go to heaven. Catholics will value this chance to see the leader of their church in a fresh light. (Mar.)

2024-04-11
Memoirs of a modern pope.

Along with contributions by Italian journalist Ragona, Pope Francis (b. 1936) offers an autobiographical look at his entire life. With Ragona’s voice as an interlocutor to help steer the narrative, Francis shares intimate memories going back to his childhood in Argentina, when the world was on the verge of war. Francis’ voice is homey, honest, and simple as he recalls and reflects on the people and events that have shaped him through the years. His family’s origins as immigrants from Italy, and his childhood memories of refugees from the ravages of World War II, were obvious early forces in the development of his views and opinions about displaced people even today. Intriguingly, Francis says little about the vibrant and disruptive political influences in Argentina through many of his formative years, in contrast to the commentators who have speculated about his sympathies for the politics of former President Juan Perón. He does devote a chapter to the “Dirty War” following the Argentine military coup in the 1970s, but he provides only scant glimpses into what were obviously life-changing and, indeed, life-threatening times for the young Jesuit priest. In fact, readers will often find that this work is more of a colorful outline than a complete autobiography. Francis often brings moral lessons and opinions into his stories, and he concludes with his hopes for the church and the broader world. “I still cultivate a dream for the future,” he notes, “that our Church might be a meek, humble, servant church, with all the attributes of God.” Despite these hopes, he admits, “the Church is full of saints, but in some cases it has become a corrupt Church, precisely because clericalism is corrupt.”

A worthwhile read for Christians that whets the appetite for further details about the pope’s past.