“Life. My story within history”, the book in which Pope Francis recalls a youthful love, the times of the Videla dictatorship and takes stock of his pontificate

In his autobiography which comes out today in six languages ​​and is entitled: “Life. My story within history”, the 87-year-old Pope begins from the future He announces that he has no intention of resigning. It is a theme that he has already spoken about in several interviews, but he always reiterates that “the Petrine ministry is ‘ad vitam'”. He also warns that “should there be a serious physical impediment, I have already presented my resignation from the pontificate, which has been deposited with the Secretariat of State.”

“This is a distant hypothesis. I have no serious reasons to think about resigning. Thanks to the Lord, I enjoy good health and have many projects to carry out.”

An optimistic Pope, therefore, tackled the 328 pages of the autobiography with a fundamental collaborator, The Italian journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona41 years old, Vatican expert and member of the four television networks of the Mediaset group founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

Marquis said Clarion who, while conversing with the Pope, suggested that he tell him about his life immersed in the great, good and bad, events of his long life. The Pope accepted and since April last year they have applied the question and answer method. “He has never consulted anything, he relied on his excellent memory and in the checks I did to avoid errors.”

In thirteen chapters the autobiography begins with the beginning of the Second World War, when Jorge Bergoglio He was a child from the Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires.son of an Italian Piedmontese family, who he remembers with great nostalgia.

Other events followed, from atomic bombs to the mission to the Moon.

The sixth chapter is dedicated to Videla and Argentina during the last military dictatorship. The next to his passion for football entitled “The hand of God”. The others complete the picture and their part in history when they made him Pope, in the Conclave of 13 March 2013, eleven years ago.

In one of his first personal confessions, Jorge Bergoglio recalls a love he kept secret. “I had a girlfriend in the past, a very sweet girl who worked in the cinema world and who then married and had two children. In fact, once I went to the wedding of one of my uncles and I was dazzled by a “girl”, she really made my head spin because she was beautiful and intelligent. For a week I always had her image in my mind, it was difficult for me to pray. Luckily everything happened and I dedicated body and soul to my vocation.”

The Pope takes philosophically everything that is said against him, starting with the “authoritarian government” and personal errors. “If I had followed the things said and written against me “I should have gone to the psychologist once a week.”

But he confesses that some attacks managed to wound him. Like what he wrote that «Francis is destroying the papacy». “I can say that my vocation is the priesthood and above all I am a shepherd and shepherds must be among the sheep”.

“It is true – he admits – that the Vatican is the last absolute monarchy in Europe and that court reasoning and maneuvers are often carried out, but these schemes must be definitively abandoned”.

He gets excited about the abortion issue. “We must always defend human life, from conception to death. “I will never tire of saying that abortion is murder, a criminal act, because it means eliminating a human life for which there is no fault”.

It also condemns “the practice of renting a womb, which is inhumane, treating children as commodities.”

The Years of Lead

The sixth chapter of the book is dedicated to Videla’s coup in Argentina, in which Francisco defends himself from the accusations and explains his role in the Jesuit order. with a special memory of Monsignor Angelelli, the bishop murdered by the military.

Problems were also difficult within the church. “These were not simple moments, the risk was around the corner, also because there was persecution against some sectors of the Church, while others, those who had sided with the regime, enjoyed full freedom”.

Bergoglio underlines that he opposed «the atrocities”, to accusations of Marxism. “The option that the Latin American pastors made, like many priests from the South of the world, was based on what was stated by the Second Vatican Council, which reformed the definition of the People of God, a concept also strengthened by the second General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate in Medellín, in 1968. A Church that chooses to take care of the poor, which announces the Gospel from a Christian and apolitical perspective.

The Pope tells how he helped young people escape repression by putting themselves at risk. “I must admit that I too was the victim of slander regarding those years of dictatorship. “They accused me of having handed over two Jesuits who worked in Bajo Flores to the regime.” Bergoglio defends himself, and explains how he managed to save them.

From the Conclave that elected him 266th. On March 13, 2013, the Pope told an anecdote about how his adversaries spent it. At the height of the election, after the resignation of Benedict XVI, the German Joseph Ratzinger says he realized that there was a group that considered him Pope when the Spanish Cardinal Santos Abril asked him: Eminence, is it true that you are missing a lung ? Francisco replied no: “I was missing the upper lobe of my right lung, which was removed when I was 21.”

April replied smiling: “These last minute maneuvers…”.

“Then I realized it could be my turn.”the Pope underlines.

In October the final phase of Bergoglio’s pontificate opens with a Synod of Synods, a world assembly of bishops convened to address crucial issues of the Church. The first part was carried out in October last year.

A strong clash is expected between traditionalists and progressives on some fundamental issues that will be up for discussion.

One of these refers to homosexuality. The Pope writes: «I imagine a Church that embraces and welcomes everyone, even those who feel wrong and who has been judged by us in the past. I think of homosexual and transsexual people who seek the Lord and who have been rejected and expelled.”

Francis confirms «the blessings for irregular couples, I mean that God loves everyone, especially sinners. And not following this path does not mean being in the antechamber of a schism, because the doctrine of the Church is not in question.”

In his autobiography the Pope writes that «homosexual marriage is not possible, but civil unions are». “It is right that these people who live the gift of love can have legal coverage like everyone else. Jesus went often meet the people who lived on the margins. This is what the Church should do today with people from the LGBTQ community who are often marginalized within the Church.”

Francis concludes that “make them feel at home, especially those people who have received baptism and are in all respects part of the people of God”.

The Pope has a dramatic message when he talks about climate risks, which are getting worse. “Time is running out, “We don’t have much left to save the planet.”