Book Review: Pope Francis: “Hope” – The Autobiography

The autobiography, written by Pope Francis together with Carlo Musso, was published by Kösel publishing House 2025. It comprises 25 chapters that vividly trace Pope Francis’ life from his childhood and youth, his school education and studies in philosophy and theology, while being a member of the Jesuit Order, to his pontificate in Rome. The book is very moving. In the foreword, Pope Francis writes that this is “the book of my life, the story of a journey of hope that I cannot imagine without my family, my people and the children of God worldwide. And so, on every page, at every step, we meet people who have accompanied me on this journey, who have gone before me and who will follow me. (…) Hope ‚esperar‘ is above all the virtue of movement, the motor of change: it is the tension that connects memory and utopia, so that we can actually realize the dreams that await us.“

                            The Italian grandparents emigrate to Argentina

It begins with an account of the dramatic shipwreck of the Italian merchant ship “Mafalda”, which sank like the Titanic in 1927, overcrowded with migrants from Italy on their way to Argentina. The 150-metre-long merchant ship, once the pride of the Italian merchant navy, was “carrying 1,200 passengers at the time of the crossing, mainly migrants from Piedmont, Liguria and Veneto. There were also people from the Marche, Basilicata and Calabria”. Pope Francis notes that his grandparents and their only child, Mario, Bergoglio’s father, had already bought tickets for the long crossing of this ship, which left Genoa for Buenos Aires on October 11, 1927. Thanks to divine providence, they did not take the ship and so it was that his grandparents only set sail on board the “Giulio Cesare” in January 1929. “They had to start their lives anew on the other side of the world! It was February 1, 1929, the coldest winter the century would live through. The Italian film maker Federico Fellini called this year ‘The year of eternal snow’ (L’anno del nevone) in one of his films. The whole of Europe was covered in a thick blanket of snow, from the Urals to the Mediterranean coast.”

When the ship finally reached the port of Buenos Aires after a two-week journey, Grandmother Rosa was still wearing the good winter coat despite the humid 30-degree heat, writes Francis.  “They were registered as ‘migrantes ultramar’. Grandfather Giovanni, who had originally been a farmer but had then managed to open a café with a bakery, was listed as a ‘comercio’ (trader), grandmother Roa as a ‘casera’ and her son Mario, my father, as a ‘contador’ (accountant).”  Over the course of the century, millions upon millions emigrated from Italy “La Merica, the USA, Brazil and, above all, Argentina.” A popular song at the time was “mamma mia, dammi cento lire che in America voglio andar.” Many emigrated to escape poverty or war. When they arrived, their first accommodation was the Hotel de Migrantes, a completely dilapidated hotel on the Rio de la Plata, filled with the stench of the miserably crowded masses of people. The Pope notes that this experience of his grandparents may be one of the reasons why, so many years later, he wanted to make his first trip during his Pontificate to the island Lampedusa in the Mediterranean “that has become an outpost of hope and solidarity, but also a symbol of the contradictions and tragedies of emigration, like the vast cemetery of the Mediterranean that holds far too many dead.”

“I also come from a migrant family. My father, my grandfather and my grandmother, like so many other Italians, emigrated to Argentina and experienced what it’s like to have absolutely nothing. I too could have been one of those excluded today, so I always carry this one question in my heart. Why them and not me?”

Migration and war

Pope Francis’ very harsh verdict about the way in which Europa is dealing with migration is a recurring theme throughout the book. For him, “migration and war are two sides of the same coin! (…) Most refugees are produced as the outcome of wars, in one way or another, because climate change and poverty are also in part the terrible consequences of a brutal war that humanity has declared against a fairer distribution of resources, against nature, indeed against the entire planet. “Today, wars are only waged in certain regions of the world, but the weapons used to fight them come from everywhere. From those countries that later reject the refugees that were created by these weapons in these conflicts in the first place.”

During his childhood, the Pope had learned a lot about the First World War from his grandfather, who had married Rosa Margherita Vassallo in 1907. After their marriage, their son Mario Giuseppe Francesco, Bergoglio’s father, was born. “My grandfather spent many months in the trenches and experienced increasingly difficult battles,” recalls the Pope. “He told me about the horrors of war, the pain, the fear, the absurd and irrefutable futility of war. But also of the fraternization with the enemy forces, which consisted of farmers, workers and employees on both sides.” Millions of human lives were sacrificed in this “senseless bloodbath”, as Pope Benedict XV said in his admonishing letter to the heads of government of the warring nations, and in which he qualified the war as “the suicide of an entire continent.”

“I had learned about the First World War through my grandfather’s stories. I learned about the Second World War in Buenos Aires through the reports of migrants who arrived here, trying to flee from this slaughter.”  Young people today in particular need to learn more about these two tragic world wars, the Pope emphasized.  Because “war is madness, and only mad development which accompanies it is destruction. (…) Those who believe they can fight evil with evil inevitably create something even worse. Those political leaders speak that language, who are incapable of dialogue and discussion, who do not fill their office with the humility of the elected official, whose rather than forging bonds of cooperation, instead rely on arrogance, those leaders will be unable to offer their people peace, justice and prosperity. Usually, they only lead them to the abyss and to ruin.”

After their marriage in Buenos Aires (1935), Bergoglio’s parents moved to Calle Membrillar no. 531, directly behind his grandparents’ house, who had a store in the Flores district. After the birth of Jorge Mario Bergoglio 1936, the first-born, four other children followed, with grandmother “Rosa” playing a particularly important role in their upbringing. “She became the focus of my childhood, a cornerstone of my existence.”

Childhood in Buenos Aires

Pope Francis describes his family as “a normal family full of dignity – which was something that our parents taught and exemplified to us. (…) From the age of two until my twenty-first birthday I always lived in the house at Calle Membrillar 531, a house with only two floors, three bedrooms, my parents’ bedroom and the two for the children, a bathroom, a kitchen-living room, a dining room for special occasions and a balcony. This house and this street were my roots in Buenos Aires and Argentina. There were many street markets in Flores suburb. The house was in a simple neighborhood, a middle-class neighborhood in the heart of the city, which was constantly changing in this large country, one of the most extensive on earth.” Pope Francis, now 88, writes about his childhood: “I had a happy childhood. Everything seemed to come naturally, play, school, learning and religious education. We also received our faith with the same naturalness: it was like a language. (…) Every Sunday morning at 10 o’clock we all went to mass together at the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia, where my sister Marta went to school. At one point he recalls the Good Friday processions, where Grandma Rosa said “Look children, he is God, but tomorrow he will rise again.” On Saturday, the day of the resurrection, when the bells rang out, people washed out their eyes “so that we can see the world in a new way and with a new gaze.  From this deep root, these precious memories, springs my attachment to the popular faith.” Sunday, for example, was also something sacred for the family. As soon as we got home, lunch was served and celebrated for hours until the afternoon. Sometimes we took those meals at our home, then again at the grandparents’ place, where there were often a good thirty of us(!). Wonderful and endless meals with five to six courses and, of course and fantastic desserts. We were by no means rich…… In the kitchen, we stuck to the Italian tradition.”

“Our neighborhood was a complete microcosm, multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multicultural. Our family always had a good relationship with people of the Jewish faith, who were called ‘Russians’ in Flores because they came in large numbers from Odessa, where there was a strong Jewish community that had been decimated by the Romanian occupiers and the Nazis in a terrible massacre during the Second World War. Many customers of the factory (a dye works) where my father worked were Jews working in the textile business.” There were also the “Turks”, Muslims, which particularly inspired him on his recent trips to Indonesia.

The Bergoglio family, and Bergoglio’s mother in particular, placed great value on culture, especially music. “Like my mother, we also loved Beniamino Gigli and Maria Caniglia, the most famous singers of the time.” And like dad, the children also adored their mother. “My father was always very much in love with my mother.” He died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 53, on September 24, 1961. Their mother died twenty years later, on January 8, 1981. All the other siblings also died, leaving only Maria Elena and Pope Francis.

In his youth, Pope enjoyed playing soccer.  He was often in goal, but had, as they say, two left feet (pata dura). For him, it was the most beautiful game in the world. Like his whole family, he was a fan of the San Lorenzo club in the Flores district and often went to the Viejo Gasómetro with his father, mother and brothers to watch matches. As a teenager, he also loved reading the “El tesoro de la juventud” magazines, with excerpts from classics, adventure stories, true stories and scientific discoveries. Also comics such as “Patoruzca”. His teacher Suora Dolores Toledo at the Catholic “Colegio de Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia” was a role model for him. He then went to a public school, the “Coronel Pedro Cerviño” in Calle Varela. “In March 1950, I began my studies at the Escuela Tecnica Especialisada en Industrias Quimicas No. 12 on Calle Goya 351 in the Florestal district. Today it is called Escuela Tecnica No. 27 Hipolito Yrigoye. It bears the name of the President of the Republic, to whom my grandfather’s close friend, Señor Elpidio, had served as deputy. We were only 14 students,” the Pope reports in his autobiography. In this school, theory and practice (work in the laboratory) were closely intertwined and after 6 years he received his diploma.

Vocation and entry into the Jesuit order

Although Bergoglio had met many friends and also girls – he for example liked to dance the tango at many festivals – he says about himself: “I was seventeen years old and already felt this restlessness of the vocation to the priesthood within me.” He then talks about an important experience for him that happened on “El Día de la Primavera”. On this day, he had to run some errands before the family left on the tram. As he passed the church of San José he suddenly had a feeling that someone was calling him.  “Or rather, I felt something that made me enter there. A strong feeling I’d never felt before, which was even mixed with a little superstition that if I didn’t go in, something bad might happen… So I went in and looked around the long e basilica. Then I saw a priest whom I didn’t know coming towards me from the altar. I had never seen him before. And suddenly I felt the urgent need to confess.” After his confession he was no longer the same person he had been before. “And suddenly I knew that I would become a priest.”  He didn’t go to the station. “Something big had happened.”

The then 18-year-old Bergoglio returned to school, but he did not speak to anyone about “my desire to become a priest.” His training in the laboratory continued. His boss at the time was Esther Ballestrino de Careaga, a biomedical and pharmaceutical researcher. She had three children and she was 35 and Bergoglio was 17 at the time. She was involved in the Rosenberg case (a famous espionage case about an American scientist couple, who were accused of having spied for the Soviets during the infamous McCarthy era in the USA and who were the only civilians executed! E.H.). She also gave Bergoglio many books to read. The autobiography states that during the period of the military junta (1976-1963) that overthrew the Perón government, she lost “her daughter to the military dictatorship in prison”.

At that time, Esther Ballestrino de Careaga called Bergoglio, by now Provincial Superior of the Jesuits, who was then teaching at the Colegio Maximo di San Miguel- in order to ask him for help. In his autobiography, the Pope describes in a very emotional way how the military junta arrested his former teacher Esther and threw her into prison, where she was tortured and then thrown from an airplane into the sea like many it happened to many “desaparecidos”. He recalls that he had tried to approach the Junta leaders General Videla and Admiral Massera, at that time urging them to do something about this crime. He did this that after a mass that he happened to hold in their house. In those dark days of the military dictatorship, the Pope reports, there were “thousands and thousands of people, among them also many priests, were tortured, murdered and had disappeared.”  He notes at one point in his autobiography that he himself needed the support of a psychiatrist, a very intelligent and capable Jewish woman, for a year, “who also helped me to understand the psychological writings intended for the seminarians.” The book reports that in 2005, a group of doctors in Buenos Aires announced that they had identified the remains of five women who had been abducted between December 8 and 10, 1977. Apparently, they had been buried in a hurry without disclosing their names. N.N. was only told. “These women were called Azucena Villaflor, Maria Ponce de Bianco, Angela Auad, Sister Leonie Duquet and Esther Ballestrino de Careaga, a great woman and good friend. The sea had washed their bodies ashore. I was a Cardinal at the time and I saw to it that they were buried in the garden of the church of Santa Cruz, where they had met regularly.”(!)

After successfully completing his studies with a diploma in 1955, Bergoglio entered the “Diocesan Seminary Immaculada Concepción” in the Villa Devoto district at the beginning of 1956 to begin his training as a priest. After a lengthy stay in a hospital however, where he had undergone lung surgery, he decided to join the Jesuit order. He began his novitiate in Córdoba, where he experienced a strict daily routine starting at 6 a.m. with getting up, breakfast and mass, followed by classes until the evening. At weekends, he gave catechism lessons to young people in the slums. There were also pilgrimages to the provinces, where he learned a great deal about the Marian cult and popular piety. On “March 12, 1960, I was deemed worthy to take the vows poverty, chastity and obedience. I vowed what I was later to complete with a solemn vow when I finally entered the Society of Jesus. The latter also includes obedience to the Pope and the acceptance of all missions entrusted to us by him.” He then spent a year in Chile at a Jesuit center, where he received a humanistic education. In March 1961, he returned to Buenos Aires to complete a three-year course in philosophy at the Colegio in San Miguel. One of his greatest teachers at the time was Padre Fuirito, professor of metaphysics. He was important for the Pope’s first reflections on “popular faith.” “His realistic view of the people of God, which neither romanticizes nor divides, and his ‘theology of the people’ began there. He mastered the art of dialogue as well as the art of listening, and his influence has accompanied me over the years and has certainly shaped many of the themes of my pontificate.”

During his philosophy studies Bergoglio also obtained a teaching license to teach art and psychology to various classes of young people aged 17 and 18 in a high school in Santa Fé. He was to teach Spanish literature, including the well-known contemporary writers Leopoldo Marechal and Jorge Luis Borges, whom Bergoglio once invited to take part in a very successful creative literary writing seminar for the young people. The well-known Argentinian poet was very helpful to Bergoglio. In 1966, Bergoglio returned to Buenos Aires as a prefect for fourth-year students and as a teacher of literature and psychology at the Colegio del Salvador. He then completed three years of theology studies at the “Colegio Maximo” from 1967 onwards, until I received my teaching license here too.”  After his ordination as a priest in 1970, he was sent to the “Colegio San Ignacio in Alcalá de Henares”, the birthplace of Cervantes in the autonomous region of Madrid. “There I was to complete my third examination period, the tertianship, a school of the heart and emotions that concludes the training of a Jesuit. During this time, I was guided by Father José Arroyo, who did me a lot of good and whom I still admire today.”  I made my perpetual profession, my fourth vow, on April 22, 1973 in San Miguel, when I was already a novice master there. And just three months later, on July 31, 1973, I was appointed Provincial Superior of the Jesuit order in Argentina. At the age of 36, I was the youngest provincial ever to be given this task.”

The significance of Fyodor Dostoyevsky for Pope Francis

In 1992, he was appointed titular bishop of Flores in Buenos Aires. During this time as he writes, he learned more about the “people”. In his autobiography, he makes a special reference to the famous Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky. “It takes a myth to understand the lived reality of a people. I have always loved Dostoyevsky, even as a boy. And since I was Rector at the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology in San Miguel, I have also been able to get enthusiastic about the studies that Romano Guardini wrote on this great Russian poet and his world. The „people“ of Dostoyevsky and Guardini are “mythical beings, without any idealization.  As much as these people may sin and suffer, they stand for an authentic humanity. They are profoundly in harmony with creation, in which we sense the mystery of divine love for the world, which is constantly renewing itself.”  It continues: “In Dostoyevsky’s religious world, the fate of the characters is decided by whether they belong to this people or have distanced themselves from it. And the trait that establishes the identity of the peoples is the Gospel (…) All the characters in Dostoyevsky’s works experience the tensions of existence, evil, pain, decay, sin: Sofia, the companion of Versilov in ‘The Young Man’; or Sonya, the girlfriend of Rodion Raskolnikov in ‘Crime and Punishment’; or the mystic Sossima in ‘The Brothers Karamazov’.  They all embody the holiness of a nation of sinners. For Christ lives in the heart of this people. The real transforming power is the living and humble love that comes from God: humble love is a mighty power, the strongest there is, a power that nothing can equal.

Papal election and beginning of the 2013 pontificate

In his autobiography, the Pope reports that, as a bishop and cardinal, he often had said to the priests and lay faithful in Buenos Aires: “Let us go out into the world. I prefer a church that stumbles, that gets dirty and wounded because it goes out into the streets, to a church that suffocates, that suffers from closed-mindedness, that clings to its own security out of comfort. And this is true for the whole Church” (…) To fulfill this task, to walk this path with the people of God, I became a priest more than fifty years ago.”

The idea of a Church that reaches out to the furthest edges of the world was a guiding principle for him. It was a decisive factor for Bergoglio’s election as Pope in 2013. At the conclave Bergoglio presented a short speech in front of the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel during the conclave in March 2013. His main focus was evangelization, as the raison d’être of the Church. “The Church is called to go out of herself and to the margins, not only the geographical ones, but also the existential ones; those of the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance lack of faith, those of thought and of every kind of misery.” If the Church does not go out to evangelize, it will become “self-centered” and sick. He dreams about the renewal of the papacy that sees its task in being a “servant” of the Church.

“The Church must become more creative, must grow in its understanding of the challenges of our time. It must open itself to dialog instead of closing itself off in fear… The Church that moves forward is becoming more and more universal.” The pope underlines that he dreams of a papacy that is more devoted to the idea of “serving” and “unity” and that it develops further. He expresses the hope that it more and more will have the role which it played in the first millennium. (This maybe  an allusion to the idea of unity with the Orthodox Churches.)

At the end of his autobiography the Pope underlines that the future and strength of the Church today comes from Latin America, Asia, India and Africa and the large number of vocations which one can see there. (!) In December 2024, for example, he appointed 21 new cardinals, from Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile and Japan, the Philippines, Serbia, Brazil and the Ivory Coast, Iran, Canada, Australia and Italy.

At the end of the book, he focusses his attention on the fact that today since the beginning of 2022, “the network of the ‘piecemeal Third World War’ is spreading ever further and is increasingly turning into a global conflict.” He specifically refers to the Russian-Ukrainian war, which “has reached the heart of Europe and swept away even the last illusions about the end of history.” In clear language, he condemns “all those political leaders – and this applies above all to the EU and European countries – who are relying solely on arms deliveries to Ukraine to resolve the war. (…) The path to peace has its risks, but continuing to rely on weapons is no less risky. The compulsion for an eternal arms race devastates souls and ties up enormous resources that would otherwise be available for the fight against hunger, for good medical care for all and for more justice.”   Referring to Pope John XXIII’s stirring encyclical “Pacem in Terris”, which he published at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, he writes at the end of the autobiography: “In view of the terrifying destructive power of modern weapons and tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, forty times worse than those which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is increasingly clear that relations between states must not be regulated by weapons, but according to principles of reason, that is,  truth, justice and deepened cooperation.”