"We must not forget the most important lesson: we can reread the story of our life in order to remember it and be able to transmit something to those who listen to us. But to learn to live, we all have to learn to love". This is the conclusion that Pope Francis draws in this book, in which he recounts for the first time the story of his life through the events that have marked humanity over the last eighty years.
Unpublished experiences, at times with a tone of intimate confession, in which he shares the origins of the bold ideas that have witnessed his pontificate: from his statements against poverty, his concern about the destruction of the environment to the direct exhortation to world leaders on issues such as the fight against inequality or the arms race.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio accompanies the reader on an extraordinary journey that begins with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, when the future pope was almost three years old, up to the present day. In its pages the voice of the pope alternates with that of a narrator who in each chapter reconstructs the historical scenario in which it is set.
In the words of the pontiff: " Life sees the light so that, especially the youngest, can listen to the voice of an old man and reflect on what our planet has lived through, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Let us think, for example, of the wars that have plagued and continue to plague the world; let us think of the genocides, the persecutions, the hatred between brothers and sisters of different religions! So much pain!
The question of poverty, as we can imagine, is also very present, emphasizing the idolatry of money: "I recall the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who, commenting on the Lehman Brothers' default and the great economic recession, said that the collapse of American credit institutions was evidence of the underlying error: the true God, once again, had been eclipsed by greed and idolatry, and had been substituted in the form of Mammon, the idolized and exalted earthly wealth".
An interesting book for anyone who wishes to know better the person who, for more than ten years, has been leading the Catholic Church.