The book, to be published on Tuesday, adds details to what is known about the pope’s childhood but falls short when it comes to his later years.
“I like punctuality, it’s a virtue I have learned to appreciate,” Pope Francis writes in the fifth chapter of his autobiography, to be published on Tuesday in 18 languages, adding that he considers it “a sign of good manners and respect, to arrive promptly.”
Unfortunately, as a newborn, Francis writes, he arrived a week late, necessitating a call to the doctor, who sat on his mother’s stomach and began to “to press and to ‘jump about’’’ to induce his birth.
“And so it was that I came into the world,” Francis writes.
“Hope: The Autobiography,” by Pope Francis — a 320-page compendium of the pope’s memories and musings on the major social and political issues of our times, including climate change, poverty, immigration, arms control and war — is billed by its English-language publisher, Random House, as an “historic publication” and “the first memoir to be published by a sitting Pope.”
That is not technically true. That honor belongs to Pope Pius II’s 15th Century chronicles, “The Commentaries,” a 13-book account of his life that is considered a seminal text in Renaissance humanism.
Francis is also not the first pope to share his life story. As a cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger wrote an autobiography which was published in 1997, eight years before he became Pope Benedict XVI, and both he and his predecessor, John Paul II, coauthored books with journalists that were personal reflections and not official papal documents.