"Hope" is described as the first autobiography ever released by a sitting pope.
The reader who hopes for secrets from within the Vatican will be disappointed, according to international media reviews. The book focuses a lot on younger years, including the tumultuous upbringing in Buenos Aires, where he, among other things, hit 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 papacy", notes the news agency AP.
He still has his favorite football team from that time, the Argentine club San Lorenzo. However, he no longer watches their matches, after a holy promise he made on a winter evening in Buenos Aires in 1990.
"We were watching TV and a dirty scene appeared on the screen", he writes. The then-priest explains that he left the room and swore to Our Lady of Mount Carmel – a common term in the Spanish-speaking world for the Virgin Mary – never to watch TV 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. "It made me laugh. I don't want to be an ice cream seller, I replied. And kept my own pants".
