At the beginning of Pope Francis’s papacy his controversial predecessor handed him a large white box stuffed with confidential documents relating to the “most difficult and painful situations” involving the Vatican, including cases of child sexual abuse and financial corruption.
“I have arrived this far, taken these actions, removed these people, now it’s your turn,” said Benedict XVI, according to “Hope: The Autobiography,” by Pope Francis, out Tuesday.
“I have continued along his path,” writes Francis.
“From the very start of my papacy [in 2013], I felt I was being called to take responsibility for all the evil committed by certain priests, who were many in number,” he continued.
“With shame and repentance, the Church must seek pardon for the terrible damage that those clergy have caused with their sexual abuse of children.”
Benedict, who faced blistering criticism for his handling of sexual abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church, resigned in February, 2013, citing “a lack of strength of mind and body” — an unusual step in the history of the papacy, which had not seen a resignation for centuries. He died in 2022.
Since becoming pope Francis has actively fought corruption, passing laws in 2021 that all bishops and cardinals will be tried if they are suspected of criminal behavior as well as promoting financial transparency, including barring employees of the Vatican from receiving gifts worth more than $45.
All senior staff also have to sign a legal disclaimer every two years stating they have not been investigated or convicted of a host of crimes including corruption, fraud, exploitation of minors, terrorism or money laundering.
Francis only cites Benedict in a few passages in his more than 300-page autobiography, Francis, 88, fiercely defends his predecessor, calling him “a father and brother to me.
“Our relationship was always genuine and deep, regardless of a few tales that were made up by those determined to tell the opposite story,” writes Francis.
Francis, who was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936, is the first pope from Latin America.
His latest book — he has authored and co-authored some 90 different titles — was only meant to be released after his death, but the Vatican’s new Jubilee of Hope year, which began last month, changed his mind, according to his ghostwriter.
Carlo Musso, an Italian editorial executive, spent the last six years working with Pope Francis on the book, according to an afterword.
In “Hope,” the leader of more than a billion Catholics around the world describes his joy when he received his religious calling for the priesthood at his neighborhood church in 1953 when he was 17-years-old. His mother was initially disappointed, and tried to convince him to become a doctor, he writes.
“Hope” is full of similar stories of growing up in a middle class Italian-Argentine household in the Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires, listening to opera on the radio, attending soccer games of his beloved San Lorenzo team and going for pizza with his close-knit family.
“I can still smell the aroma of pizza,” he writes. “To tell the truth, going out for pizza is one of the small things that I most miss.”
Television is not one of those things. He said he stopped watching TV in 1990 after seeing “a sordid scene,” which he does not describe, when it was broadcast. At that moment he made a vow to the Virgin of Carmen to never to watch TV again, although he says he couldn’t help but watch the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center as they unfolded on 9/11.
As pope, Francis eschewed the trappings of grandeur. He refused to stay in the papal apartment and lives modestly in the Santa Marta guesthouse near St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
He made the point of phoning his newsagent in Buenos Aires to let him know he wouldn’t be needing his papers delivered following the March, 2013 conclave when he was elected pope. He has already dictated how his funeral will go. No catafalque (an ornate platform to place a coffin on), he said.
“The bishop of Rome is a pastor and a disciple, not a powerful man of this world,” he writes.
He is also practical when it comes to diplomacy. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he said he went over to the Russian embassy at the Vatican to complain.
His distaste for war comes from the stories told to him by his paternal grandfather Giovanni Angelo Bergoglio, a veteran of the First World War who spent months in the trenches serving as a radio operator.
And Francis’ sympathy for the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have poured into Europe and North America comes from the difficult journey his own family endured to escape poverty in Italy bound for “La Merica,” he writes.
“I too had been born into a family of migrants,” he writes, adding that he felt compelled to travel to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa which has been overwhelmed by migrants from Africa. “I too could have been among the outcasts of today.”
