According to his publishers, Pope Francis originally intended that his autobiography should not see the light of day until after his death. He is said to have changed his mind after reflecting upon “the needs of our times” and having decided that 2025 should be a Jubilee Year for the Catholic Church, a celebration whose theme will be “Pilgrims of Hope.” The book will therefore appear January 14 (following a leak that rocked the publishing world), scarcely a month after Francis’s 88th birthday, under the appropriate if slightly unimaginative title Hope.
There were almost certainly other factors behind the Pope’s decision. The struggle between progressives and conservatives that has beset the worldwide Catholic Church since the death of Pope John Paul II, in 2005, or even, some would say, since the Second Vatican Council of 1962 to 1965—and highlighted in the new Edward Berger film, Conclave, which has piqued interest in the Vatican’s political fissions and factions—is a contest over which Francis wants to exert as much influence as possible before his reign ends. In principle, the public pronouncements contained in his autobiography will serve that end.
