
Hope
The Autobiography
Random House Publishing Group · Print & ebook · January 14, 2025
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pope Francis originally intended this exceptional memoir to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope moved him to make this precious legacy available sooner.
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- Who it’s for
- A candid life story meets reflections on faith, public life, and the questions of the present.
- Themes
- Pope Francis’s life and papacy, Migration and family roots, Faith, ethics, and public issues
- Genres
- Religious Lives, Catholicism, Personal Memoirs
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Pope Francis originally intended this exceptional memoir to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope moved him to make this precious legacy available sooner. Now, the book stands as his testament; the spiritual, faith-filled, as well as moral, social, and civic legacy that he envisioned and left for the benefit of all the men and women of the world.
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“Hope vividly recreates the colorful world where the young Jorge Mario Bergoglio grew up.”—The New York Times Hope is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope. Written over six years, this complete autobiography starts in the early years of the twentieth century, with Pope Francis’s Italian roots and his ancestors’ courageous migration to Latin America, continuing through his childhood, the enthusiasms and preoccupations of his youth, his vocation, adult life, and the whole of his papacy up to the present day. In recounting his memories with intimate narrative force (not forgetting his own personal passions), Pope Francis deals unsparingly with some of the crucial moments of his papacy and writes candidly, fearlessly, and prophetically about some of the most important and controversial questions of our present times: war and peace (including the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East), migration, environmental crisis, social policy, the position of women, sexuality, technological developments, the future of the Church and of religion in general. Hope includes a wealth of revelations, anecdotes, and illuminating thoughts. It is a thrilling and very human memoir, moving and sometimes funny, which represents the “story of a life” and, at the same time, a touching moral and spiritual testament that will fascinate readers throughout the world and will be Pope Francis’s legacy of hope for future generations. The book is enhanced by remarkable photographs, including private and unpublished material made personally available by Pope Francis himself.
Memory and Conviction
A candid life story meets reflections on faith, public life, and the questions of the present.
Come here for
- A personal account spanning family roots, childhood, vocation, and papacy
- Thoughtful engagement with faith, migration, conflict, and social questions
Expect
- Intimate memories alongside moral and spiritual reflection
- A human memoir, moving at times and occasionally funny
Where it sits
| Religious Lives | 79% |
|---|---|
| Catholicism | 45% |
| Personal Memoirs | 43% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Catholicism
- Christian Memoirs
- Church Leadership
- Authors
- Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio
- Publisher
- Random House Publishing Group
- Published
- January 14, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Pope Francis’s life and papacy · Migration and family roots · Faith, ethics, and public issues
- Reading lane
- Catholicism