Pope Francis will tell the story of his life in a memoir being published next year, the Guardian reports. It will become the first autobiography in history to be released by a sitting pope.
Random House will publish the pontiff’s Hope: The Autobiography, co-written with Carlo Musso, in the winter. It calls the book “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.”
Francis became the head of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013, the first Jesuit to be elected pope. Prior to his papacy, he was a chemist and a priest who rose to become an archbishop and cardinal. He is the author of several previous books, including The Church of Mercy, Happiness in This Life, and Let Us Dream.
“Pope Francis originally intended this exceptional book to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope have moved him to make this precious legacy available now,” Random House says. It says that in the book, 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.”
Hope is scheduled for publication on Jan. 14, 2025.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
