“Hope” is described as the first autobiography ever released by a sitting pope.
The reader hoping for secrets from inside the Vatican will be disappointed, according to international media reviews. The book focuses a lot on his younger years, including his turbulent upbringing in Buenos Aires when, among other things, he beat another boy almost to unconsciousness. “He seems deeply ashamed of his younger self, and writes that he still does not see himself as worthy of the title of Pope,” states the news agency AP.
Therefore, the Pope does not watch television
His favorite football team remains from that time, the Argentine club San Lorenzo. However, he does not watch broadcasts of their matches anymore, after a sacred promise he made one winter evening in Buenos Aires in 1990.
“We were watching TV and a filthy scene appeared on the screen,” he writes. The priest at the time explains that he left the room, swearing to Our Lady of Mount Carmel – a common name for the Virgin Mary in the Spanish-speaking world – never to watch television again.
The descriptions of how he became pope in 2013 are characterized by feelings of unreality. But when it comes to the clothes in his new role as Pope Francis, he stood his ground.
“They told me I had to change my pants, and wear white ones,” writes the 88-year-old. “That made me laugh. I don’t want to be an ice cream seller, I replied. And kept my own pants”.