Reviewed by Walter B. Shurden
Pope Francis, LIFE, My Story Through History, by Pope Francis with Fabio Marchese Ragona, translated from the Italian by Aubrey Botsford (Harper One, 2024). 232 pages.
Pope Francis, HOPE, The Autobiography by Pope Francis with Carlo Musso (Random House, 2025). 302 pages.
Kirby Godsey, former president of Mercer University and a cradle Baptist, said to me once of Pope Francis, “He is certainly their pope, but he is also our pope.” I have felt that sentiment in my bones ever since I read “The Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis’ first Apostolic Exhortation. Regardless of what saintly leader yet emerges in the 21st century, I would bet good Baptist money that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis, the 266th supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, will be assessed in 2100 as among the greatest spiritual leaders of the 21st century. If not, I and millions of others will break our deadly silence from another world shouting, “Shame, Shame, Shame!”
For both devotees and decriers (and both abound), here are two books by and about Pope Francis. They are lush lodes of memories of the Argentinian priest become pope. While both books recount his life, each has distinctives.
LIFE is the earlier book by one year. Francis and his collaborator, Ragona, retell the Francis story through the momentous events of the last 80 years. These events include World War II, the genocide of the Jews, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War and McCarthyism, the historic moon landing, Argentina’s Dirty War, the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, the birth of the European Union, 11 September 2001, the great economic crisis, Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, and Covid 19. That’s a lot of history to live through and reflect upon. Depending upon your age, you, too, will recall some of these events and your reactions to them. Here you can compare your responses to those of one of the sensitive souls of our time.
LIFE came into existence after a series of conversations between Fabio Marchese Ragona and Pope Francis. These conversations caused Francis to open “the door to his heart and memories …on fundamental topics like faith, family, poverty, interfaith dialogue, sports, scientific progress, peace and many others” (LIFE 2).
Each chapter of the book has two voices. Ragona first reconstructs moments in the life of the future pope, placing them in global historical context. Pope Francis follows by giving rare glimpses “into the treasure chest of his memories,” speaking candidly about events that changed both the world and him.
The second book, HOPE, belongs to the genre of classic autobiography. This is the unmistakable voice of Pope Francis, though Carlo Musso assisted with producing the book. In 29 chapters, we are led from Francis’ common Italian ancestry to his humble ascendancy and ministry in Peter’s chair.
In the initial 10 chapters, he details his growing-up years in Argentina. Here we learn of his young loves: family (especially Grandmother Rosa who “sealed” his religiosity), the city streets of Buenos Aires, classical music, soccer, childhood friends, tango, basketball, girlfriends, stamp collecting and reading, among others. One senses a man who dearly reveled in a happy childhood and exciting teen years.
In the last 15 chapters, Francis described his priestly life. From his phenomenal “Call” experience on September 21, 1953, to his death on April 21, 2025, he consistently befriended everybody— prisoners, prostitutes, the poor, communists, common people (especially their spirituality), LGBTQ people, migrants and all who suffered. He did not fear the labels people wore or were made to wear. He moved toward people, not away from them. He was a Christian pastor, not a religious bureaucrat. He was a street Christian, hunting down hurt, not a religious officer in prissy clothing. “When someone is left behind, the whole human family comes to a halt, (HOPE 39)” he warned.
He had his laments. He bemoaned authoritarianism and clericalism. Of clericalism, he complained often and loudly. Clericalism, he groused, is “the view of clerics as an elite with an attitude of moral superiority over and distance from the faithful.” Then he added, “It has become a disease, a plague” (LIFE 217)!
An uncompromising advocate of the reforms of Vatican II, Pope Francis disdained what he called traditionalism or “backwardism.” In the bright lights of Vatican II, he pushed synodality, a theological way of listening to all the people of God, not just the priestly hierarchy. And he faced stubborn opposition in trying to bend a hardened vertical line within the church into a more supple horizontal one. Because he believed that “the people” had a nose for finding new paths, he wanted to give them a place at the table, a round one.
Ethically. Francis loathed war, poverty, nationalism and a church that pulls inward on itself. Regarding the mission of the church, he told both priests and laity, “Go out, go out, I prefer a Church that is broken, wounded, and dirty for having gone out on the streets, rather than a Church that is feeble and sick for having closed itself up and clung on comfortably to its safety.” He added, “I am well aware that programs are necessary, but I find it difficult to place much hope in an organizational chart” (HOPE 178-79).
He nudged the church a bit forward on the role of women, but certainly not far enough. And my guess is that he would have done much more had he not suspected a Reformation-like schism. But I am guessing here.
I read HOPE with my coffee in the mornings, two or three chapters at a time. About a third of the way into the book, I realized that this autobiography was serving itself up to me as devotional literature. Courage in the face of fierce opposition, compassion for those on the bottom, identification with those on the outside, savvy for dealing with ethical complexities, passion for our common earth home, sensitivity to the revolting violence of war and poverty—some of this and much more appeared on most every page of this memoir.
One comes away from HOPE newly sensitized and awakened to the ethical issues facing all of us. But I also came away from HOPE with a long-held conviction that was both enlarged and inflamed: It is impossible to overstate the importance of leadership! Regardless of the religious, cultural, political and economic climate, the right person at the right time can change things, shake things up, or cause “good trouble.”
Francis literature is already abundant, and it will only multiply in the future. These two books, LIFE and HOPE, are essential primary sources, coming directly from the words of Pope Francis. Additionally, Austen Ivereigh has proven to be one of the best interpreters of Pope Francis. His two books, The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope and Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church, will help you further understand Pope Francis and the current turbulence within the Catholic Church, some of which the smiling, baby-faced Pope ignited. If you are serious, begin your reading with HOPE, then turn to LIFE, The Great Reformer, and Wounded Shepherd in that order.
My wife told some of her friends that I, 70 years a Baptist, was “trending Catholic.” Not really. I’m not “moving my membership.” But I have trended “Francis,” even with some serious disagreements with him on abortion, the sacraments, and Marian devotion. Based upon reading these two books and others, however, I give thanks to God that while “he was their pope, he was also my pope.”
Walter B. Shurden is Minister at Large, Mercer University. He is a frequent contributor to Christian Ethics Today. He and his wife, Kay, live in Maryville, TN.
