Life: My Story through History

by Pope Francis Narrated by Stephen Colbert, Father John Quigley

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Pope Francis' life story is a moving and urgent call to action. Urging humanity to be more loving and humane, this is essential reading for Catholics, as well as for all who simply want a better world. As a leader for environmental, social and economic ideals, Pope Francis is more and more a beacon for meaningful change.

Audiobook read by Stephen Colbert and Father John Quigley

For the first time, Pope Francis tells the story of his life as he looks back on the momentous world events that have changed history-from his earliest years during the outbreak of World War II in 1939 to the turmoil of today.*

An extraordinary personal and historical journey,*Life*is the story of a man and a world in dramatic change. Pope Francis recalls his life through memories and observations of the most significant occurrences of the past eight decades. The book opens with three-year-old Jorge in the kitchen with his mother in Argentina as World War II breaks out, and he goes on to witness several historic events:

• ********the fall of the Berlin Wall
• ********Videla's coup in Argentina
• ********the moon landing in 1969
• ********and even the 1986 World Cup in which Maradona scored the unforgettable “hand of God” goal.

Here are the frank assessments and intimate insights of a pastor reflecting on the Nazi extermination of the Jews, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 2001 terrorist attack on America and the collapse of the Twin Towers, the great economic recession of 2008, the Covid-19 pandemic, the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, and the subsequent conclave that elected him Pontiff.

The “pope callejero” recounts these world-changing moments with the candor and compassion that distinguishes him, and offers important messages on major crises confronting us now, including social inequalities, climate change, international war, atomic weapons, racial discrimination, and the battles over social and cultural issues.

Translated from the Italian by Aubrey Botsford

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

04/15/2024

Pope Francis (A Good Life) provides a plainspoken overview of how some of the most significant events of the 20th and early 21st centuries shaped his life and morals. Among other episodes, he examines how the news from Nazi Germany he heard during his childhood in Argentina awoke him to “the persecution of Jews”; remembers watching the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, a recollection that leads him to call for Christians to build “bridges instead of barriers”; and suggests that the events of September 11 offer a lesson in the importance of decrying “the use of the name of God to justify slaughter.” Elsewhere, Francis covers the creation of the EU, the 2007–2008 Great Recession, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite a tendency to meander (as when his recollection of the 1969 moon landing awkwardly launches into a critique of technology’s ills), readers will be fascinated by the insights into how these historical events influenced a transformative pope who broke with his more conservative predecessors by recognizing and blessing same-sex civil unions and entertaining the possibility that atheists could go to heaven. Catholics will value this chance to see the leader of their church in a fresh light. (Mar.)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160308005
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/19/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	401,724

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