Pope Francis’ new autobiography, ‘Hope,’ to be out in January 

A new autobiography by Pope Francis, Hope, co-written with Italian Carlo Musso, will appear in 80 countries next January. Publisher Mondadori made the announcement at the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 16, 2024. The new 400-page work on the life of Pope Francis will be released by a dozen publishing houses on January 14, 2025, less than a year after the release of the autobiography Life: My Story Through History (Harper Collins), co-written with an Italian journalist

Mondadori, which promises a book “rich in revelations and untold stories,” explains that the Pope originally intended the book to appear after his death. Instead, it will be published early, on the occasion of the 2025 Jubilee.

These memoirs are the fruit of work begun in 2019 with writer Carlo Musso, former editorial director of Piemme and Sperling & Kupfer publishing companies and founder of the Italian bookshop chain Pienogiorno. They trace the life of the Argentinian pontiff back to the beginning of the 20th century, with an account of the Italian roots of history’s first South American pope. 

This book covers his childhood, youth, and vocation, as well as his pontificate. This autobiographical account tackles with “frankness, courage and prophecy the most important and debated topics of our contemporary times, as well as the crucial questions of his service as universal pastor of the Church,” promises the publisher. 

This work is “the story of a path of hope that I cannot imagine separated from that of my family, my people, all the people of God,” explains Pope Francis in the note anticipating the publication of the volume.

“It’s also — on every page, at every step — the book of those who have walked with me, of those who have gone before us, of those who will follow us,” he continues. 

According to Pope Francis’ wishes, this autobiography was not going to be published until after his death, says Mondadori. “But the Jubilee of Hope announced for 2025 and the demands of the times have moved him to distribute this precious legacy now,” says the publisher. 

Pope Francis has been the subject of dozens of biographies since his accession to the Throne of St. Peter’s in 2013.

Last March, his first autobiographical work was published by Harper Collins. Titled Life: My Story Through History, the first-person account — written with the help of an Italian journalist — looked back on his time in Argentina and his pontificate. 

In 340 pages, he retraced the story of his youth. We learn that he had a girlfriend before he embraced religious life. He also recounts how he navigated the Argentine dictatorship following the 1976 coup d’état, and his relationship with the country’s presidents. 

On the subject of his pontificate, Francis returned to his relationship with Benedict XVI, the Pope Emeritus who remained in the Vatican from 2013 to 2022. Pope Francis wrote that this relationship had been “instrumentalized for ideological and political ends by unscrupulous people” who did not accept Benedict’s resignation.

Finally, Francis explained that he did not wish to resign his ministry as pope, except in the event of a “serious physical impediment.” Should this happen, he wrote that he did not wish to bear the title of “pope emeritus” and that he would move to the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome to resume his ministry as “confessor.”

Read more:Pope Francis’ ‘Life’ is an easy, intimate read