Pope francis real name

The book was released in multiple languages Jan. Follow on Twitter at cwwhiteNCR. Send your thoughts to Letters to the Editor. Learn more Rome — January 17, Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email to a friend Print The iconic image of Barack Obama's presidential campaign was the retro-style poster of the then-history-making candidate paired with the words "Hope," meant to signal a change in the nation's political life.

In , soon after the election of Pope Francis — another outsider figure — similar images appeared swapping out images of the president with that of the new maverick pontiff. Now, that same title has been chosen for the pope's newly released autobiography, which hit bookstores in some 80 countries this week. Hope: The Autobiography , written in conjunction with Italian publisher Carlo Musso, is being billed as the first ever memoir by a sitting pope.

But Hope is less autobiography than it is an aggregation of already existing stories, interviews, speeches and history that are already known about the nowyear-old pontiff.

Where was pope francis born

A forthcoming review in the pages of the National Catholic Reporter will offer a fuller assessment of the book's literary merits. For now, here are five takeaways:. But it is more than just melancholia that comes through: The book is peppered with stories of regret and humiliation from Jorge Mario Bergoglio's childhood onwards. Many of the incidents are seemingly minor: ignoring a visit from a housemaid who had cared for his family when he was younger; shying away from taking a photo with his dying father; avoiding visiting a dying priest with whom he was close.

Since the earliest days of his papacy, Francis has frequently insisted that "God never tires of forgiving. Pope Francis gives his blessing to visitors gathered in St. During a visit to Rome's Piazza di Spagna in , Francis cried when discussing the suffering of Ukrainians following Russia's invasion. And almost every incident recounted in this memoir when the pope is moved to tears involves a moment when the pope is reminded of the horrors of war: his visit to Redipuglia military cemetery to commemorate those lost in World War I, a visit to the American cemetery at Nettuno, Italy, and a meeting with victims of the protracted war in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

God is peace.