Table of Contents
What does Pope Francis say about the Dirty War and his early life in his 2025 autobiography Hope?
Explore the life of Jorge Bergoglio in this comprehensive summary of Pope Francis’s 2025 memoir, Hope. From his childhood in Buenos Aires and the secrets of the 2013 Vatican Conclave to his vision for a modernized Church, discover the events that shaped his papacy. Read the full summary below to understand how a humble priest from Flores defied death and political persecution to become the most transformative figure in modern Catholic history.
Genres
Personal Development, Religion, Spirituality, Biography, Memoir
Introduction: Pope Francis’s own story
Hope (2025) tells, in his own words, the story of Pope Francis’s remarkable life. From the streets of Buenos Aires to the palaces of the Vatican, learn about the remarkable events that have shaped the life and spirituality of the head of the Catholic Church.
This summary tells the story of a man you may not have heard of: Jorge Bergoglio. It also tells the story of a man you definitely know: Pope Francis, the first Latin American pope, and a figure who has redefined the papacy. As the first Latin American pope his election marked a dramatic shift in Church history. But it’s his message of hope, emphasis on social justice, and profound compassion for marginalized groups that have truly redefined what it means to lead the Catholic Church. through his message of hope, his emphasis on social justice and his compassion for marginalized groups.
Francis began life as Jorge Bergoglio, the son of Italian immigrants to Buenos Aires. This summary shares Jorge’s remarkable journey from the barrios of Argentina to the throne of St. Peter. You’ll learn how Francis’ early life shaped his spirituality. From his youngest days, playing football on the streets of his neighbourhood, to the first stirrings of his spiritual vocation, and an early brush with death, you’ll see how Francis finds God’s presence in his earliest memories. As his career unfolds, you’ll understand how Argentina’s years of brutal political turmoil both shaped and strengthened both his resilience and his conviction that light can emerge from darkness. his Christian values. And you’ll get an intimate behind-the-scenes look at the secretive Vatican conclave where, much to his own surprise, Jorge Bergoglio became Pope Francis.
Curious to understand more about the man behind the papacy? Then let’s begin…
An act of God
October, 1927: the Italian transatlantic SS Principessa Mafalda is sailing through the frigid Atlantic waters off Brazil’s coast. Aboard are 971 passengers and 288 crew. The journey, which began thousands of miles away in the Italian port city of Genoa, has been smooth. Until now. The ship begins listing heavily to one side. Panic breaks out. The ship’s power fails and darkness descends. The desperate passengers faced a horrifying choice. Stay aboard and sink along with the ship or dive into the inky, shark-infested waters below. 314 of them died.
The young Mario Bergoglio, along with his parents, had planned to be aboard the ill-fated vessel. But fate intervened. The Bergoglios planned to fund their new life in Argentina by selling their personal possessions, but could not sell them in time. This was a frustrating setback. To Mario’s future son, Jorge Bergoglio who would go on to become Pope Francis, it was in fact an instance of divine providence.
Four years later, the Bergoglio family did join the great wave of Italian migration to South America. They were part of a massive exodus driven by poverty, political upheaval, and persecution under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. Like so many migrants, they remembered their home fondly. But, as critics of Mussolini, their lives there had been marked by violence and deprivation. Their experiences would later inform Pope Francis’s humanitarian stance on migration and his deep empathy for displaced peoples. His first papal visit outside the Vatican was to Lampedusa, the Mediterranean port which is a focal point of ‘illegal’ migration to Europe.
Francis’ early life left him with a deep appreciation of roots and memory. Equally, as Pope, he draws on his immigrant childhood to champion the dignity of migrants and the displaced.
Humble beginnings
531 Calle Membrillar in the Flores neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, in a modest single storey house with three bedrooms, is where Jorge Bergoglio lived from ages two to twenty-one, along with his parents and four siblings. The unassuming house was always crowded, full of activity and lively discussion. This atmosphere was mirrored in the streets outside. Flores in the 1930s and 40s was a working-class barrio with a large immigrant population. Jewish families from Odessa shared streets with Turkish, Syrian, and Lebanese Muslims who still carried passports from the old Ottoman Empire.
Within a few blocks of Calle Membrillar were some of the most significant landmarks in Jorge’s early life: the dyeworks where his father kept the books, his grandparents’ homes, and the Colegio Nuestra Señora de Misericordia where he attended nursery school. The streets were his playground. Along with the other neighbourhood children, Jorge played football with a ball made of rags; leather was far too expensive. During carnival, the streets would explode with life, and Jorge joined the costumed revelers once even dressing with his sister; him as a groom and her as a bride.
As Pope, Francis carries his Argentine childhood with him. He is still a football fan, and views it as a powerful force for unity. He credits his commitment to multiculturalism and interfaith dialogue to the vibrant neighbourhood he grew up in. But the most profound legacy of his childhood? His advocacy for the poor and marginalized. Poverty and desperation were a fact of life for many Flores residents. Francis remembers one of the neighbourhood’s sex workers, known as La Porota, who was well known by the whole barrio.
Years later, when Jorge Bergoglio was auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires he had a phone call from an old acquaintance: La Porota herself. He invited her to the bishop’s palace, where she told him how, like Mary Magdalene, she had given up sex work and devoted herself to caring for other sex workers. Jorge performed a special mass for the sex workers of Buenos Aires, and blessed them. When La Porota fell ill. Jorge performed her last rites. He still prays for her on the anniversary of her death every year, a small gesture that encompasses his vision for a truly inclusive church.
The calling
Before he was a priest, a bishop, a cardinal, or the Pope, Jorge Bergoglio was a teenage boy in Buenos Aires, with all the normal preoccupations of adolescence: he dreamed about his future, considering a career in chemistry, and he felt the first stirrings of teen love. But in the back of his mind, he felt called towards God.
The decisive moment came on September 21, 1953 – the Day of the Student, a holiday where young people traditionally celebrated the arrival of spring with outdoor picnics. Jorge had planned to meet friends for an afternoon celebration after a morning spent running errands for his mother. But fate, or God, intervened. Passing the church of San Jose de Flores, he felt an inexplicable pull to enter. Inside, he made his confession to a priest named Father Duarte. What started like a routine Catholic practice turned transformative. Even though this confession was no different from any other, as he went through the ritual Jorge – before leaving the confessional, Jorge knew with certainty that he would become a priest.
But Jorge would not act on this calling immediately. He began working in a chemistry laboratory, with a view to pursuing his interest in science. His colleague at the lab was Esther Ballestrino de Careaga. Esther activated Jorge’s political consciousness. She was a Marxist activist who gave Jorge a powerful education in progressive politics.
Years later, in 1976, a military junta led by General Jorge Rafael Vida seized power in Argentina. The regime launched what became known as the “Dirty War” – a campaign of state terrorism that would claim an estimated 30,000 lives. The victims, known as “desaparecidos” or “the disappeared,” included students, workers, journalists, and anyone suspected of leftist sympathies. They were kidnapped, and often tortured in secret detention centers. Many were never seen again nor their bodies ever found.
In response to these atrocities, mothers of the disappeared began gathering in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo, directly in front of the presidential palace. Wearing white head scarves embroidered with their children’s names, these women – including Esther, whose daughter and son-in-law were both kidnapped – defied the regime’s ban on public gatherings by walking silently in pairs. Their movement became a powerful symbol of resistance against state terror.
During this period, like his mentor Esther, Jorge engaged in his own form of resistance. He was now a Jesuit priest and, using his priest’s credentials, helped people through military checkpoints. He even kept subversive literature hidden on seminary grounds. When Esther became a target, he hid her Marxist library. Despite these efforts, she was kidnapped in 1977 and became one of the disappeared – her remains were not identified until 2005.
Using his priesthood to smuggle dissidents to safety and shelter banned books, Francis lived out his conviction that spiritual devotion and social justice were inseparable – that the Church’s true role was to be a force for concrete hope in the face of state terror. Yet
Ssome Church officials were complicit with the regime. As pope, Francis has acknowledged the Church’s failures during this period. After he was elected to the papacy, he ordered the Vatican archives should be opened to researchers studying the Church’s role in the Dirty War. His own experiences during this dark time contribute to his emphasis on the Church’s obligation to stand up to state terror and systemic evil.
A priest for the people
In 1956, Jorge Bergoglio answered his spiritual calling and entered a Jesuit seminary. The Jesuits, a Catholic religious order of priests and brothers bound by special vows, areorder is known for theirits intellectual rigor, missionary work, and dedication to education. At seminary, he would immerse himself in theology and scholarship. But in 1957, a flu epidemic tore around the globe. Jorge fell ill. As his condition worsened, he was rushed from seminary to hospital where doctors realized he was critically unwell. They performed an emergency endoscopy that drained 1.5 liters of fluid from his lungs. Multiple surgeries followed to repair lung damage and remove cysts, leaving him with a permanent reminder of the fragility of life.
Returning to seminary, Jorge wrestled with uncertainty. His brush with death had left him more ready than ever to embrace life, in all its messiness and hardship. He began to question whether he was really suited to the solitary life of a seminarian.
He left the seminary in Buenos Aires and went to Córdoba, a city at the foothills of the Sierras Chicas. Here, he joined twenty other novice priests. He rolled up his sleeves to work on the farm attached to the priory, and taught catechism to local children. Working with children was especially meaningful for Jorge.
As both a priest and as pope, Francis has been guided by the Bible’s teaching, in Mathew 19:14, As in the Bible’s Matthew 19:14, he believes that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children. The systemic abuse of children by Catholic clergy is, he believes, a stain on the church. As Pope, he tackled the abuse unflinchingly, declaring “The pain of the victims is a lament that rises to heaven.” He condemns both the abusers, and the clergy who have protected the abusers and silenced their victims. What’s more, he believes the public outcry about these abuses is more than justified. To Francis, this rage is a mirror of God’s own fury at this betrayal.
After leaving Cordoba, Jorge embarked on pilgrimages with fellow priests. Together they hitchhiked through the countryside. They never carried money. Instead they labored – whitewashing walls or sweeping church floors – in exchange for food and shelter. Later, he worked in the shantytowns of Chile and Argentina, preferring to be among the people than preaching to them.
Even today, Pope Francis eschews solitude in favor of community. When he became pope he made the unprecedented decision to decline the use of the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. Instead, he lives in the Casa Santa Marta guesthouse among visiting priests. Since he was a novitiate, Francis has maintained that while solitude and study offer one path to God, his calling has always been rooted in the fabric of community and society.
The conclave
When Jorge Bergoglio was ordained as a priest in 1969, he could hardly have imagined that 44 years later, he would find himself at the Vatican, about to ascend to the highest office in the Catholic Church, after having served as Jesuit provincial superior, auxiliary bishop, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, and cardinal.
In March 2013, following Pope Benedict XVI’s historic resignation, the College of Cardinals gathered for the conclave – the ancient, secretive process by which the Church selects its new leader. Jorge wasn’t considered a likely candidate; rather, he was viewed as a potential kingmaker, one of the Latin American cardinals who might influence others’ votes. That changed, however, when he made a planned address at the conclave’s preparatory meeting. His passion and energy left some in the audience convinced that he embodied the qualities the Catholic church most needed in their next head.
Jorge himself didn’t believe he was in the running. In fact, he had already booked his return flight to Buenos Aires for a few days after the conclave’s end. He wanted to be back in his diocese before the beginning of Holy Week, one of the busiest in the church’s calendar.
The day after the preparatory meeting, the conclave kicked off. Cardinals entered the Vatican, surrendering their phones and laptops at security, to begin the voting ritual. The first vote followed traditional patterns: when clear front-runners emerge, undecided voters often cast “stopgap” votes for unlikely candidates while waiting to see how support consolidates. Jorge received some of these votes but remained confident they were merely stopgap votes.
The drama intensified with the fifth ballot, which had to be retaken when two paper slips stuck together – a technical error requiring all votes to be burned uncounted. In the final tally, Jorge’s name was read out again and again. When the 77th vote – the two-thirds majority needed – was counted, the Sistine Chapel erupted in applause. In the celebrations, Cardinal Hummes, who had studied at a Franciscan seminary in Rio Grande del Sul, embraced the new pope and whispered, “Don’t forget about the poor.” In that instant, Jorge knew he would take the name Francis, honoring Francis of Assisi, the saint who dedicated his life to the marginalized. It was a choice signaling the priorities of his papacy . It was a choice signaling the priorities of his papacy – a commitment to the poor, a focus on mercy over judgment, and an openness to dialogue with those traditionally excluded from Church circles. His election – as the first Latin American pope, first Jesuit, and first pope from outside Europe in over a millennium – heralded a new era for the Church, one where ancient traditions could meet modern challenges with renewed hope and purpose.
Looking to the future
The story of Pope Francis is the story of a remarkable journey. From Italy to Argentina, from the shantytowns of Buenos Aires and Chile to the palaces of the Vatican, from Jorge Bergoglio to Francis, Pontiff. At every step of the journey, Francis can draw meaningful lessons from his past. But his connection to his past does not cloud his vision for the future. How will this vision shape the Catholic Church?
Francis is committed to what he calls the “demasculinization” of the Church. As a devoted follower of Mary, he insists that the Church itself is fundamentally female, not male. While clerics may be male, he argues, they are not the Church – they serve the Church, which is their bride. Francis has elevated women to unprecedented positions of power, as when he appointed Sister Rafaella Petrini secretary general of the Vatican City State. While he hasn’t explicitly endorsed allowing women to be ordained into the priesthood he has taken the notable step of refusing to rule out the possibility.
Francis’s social vision draws selectively from liberation theology, the radical Latin American Catholic movement that emphasizes political and economic liberation. He has consistently critiqued unfettered capitalism and championed economic justice. This commitment is symbolized in his canonization of Oscar Romero. Romero was a Salvadoran archbishop murdered by right-wing death squads in 1980 for defending the poor. Romero’s journey from conservative cleric to outspoken advocate for the oppressed parallels the transformation Francis envisions for the whole Church.
Francis has already modernized the Church in numerous ways: relaxing rules around communion for divorced Catholics, taking a more pastoral approach to LGBTQ+ individuals, emphasizing environmental stewardship as a religious duty, and streamlining Vatican bureaucracy. Yet he sees much more to be done.
As he told his priests in Buenos Aires, and now tells the global Church: “Go out, go out!” His preference, he insists, is for a Church “broken, wounded and dirty from being out on the streets” rather than one that grows “weak and feeble from being locked away.” In this vision, tradition isn’t a fortress but a foundation for engaging with modern challenges.
Conclusion
In this summary to Hope by Pope Francis you’ve learned that growing up in Buenos Aires shaped Jorge Bergoglio’s vision of a Church that serves the poor and marginalized. As Pope Francis, he has transformed the papacy through radical reforms, such as criminalizing child abuse by clergy and establishging strong interfaith dialogue, and through his an insistence that Catholicism must actively engage with society rather than hide behind tradition.