The Vatican has shared that Pope Francis died at age 88, during the early hours of Easter Monday. Although he had been battling pneumonia for several weeks earlier this year, his death still came as a shock to the global Catholic community. He made his last public appearance just one day earlier, on Easter Sunday, when he greeted onlookers as he was driven around St. Peter's Square.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Pope Francis was the first Latin American and the first Jesuit to hold the esteemed position. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969 and became the head of the Church in 2013, when a papal conclave elected him as Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.
In an era of divisiveness and waning Church membership, Pope Francis’s tenure was characterized by a commitment to social justice and outreach to people of different backgrounds and faiths. He repeatedly spoke out about economic inequality, the destruction of the environment, and the rise of right-wing nationalism, and rallied behind marginalized identities such as the poor, refugees, and the LGBTQ community. In an Easter Sunday message read aloud by an aide, he reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Although he was one of the most influential people in the world, Pope Francis took a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors, and wanted his own funeral rites to be simplified. Over the coming days, the Catholic community—numbering over a billion people worldwide—will mourn the passing of an inspirational figure whose compassion and leadership will not be forgotten.
A Future of Faith
The beloved people's Pope reveals his views on the contentious political issues of our time—from immigration to climate change. Controversial, bold, personal, and illuminating, A Future of Faith will serve to be essential reading for not only Catholics, but those who want to see how the “people’s pope” confronts the social injustices of the world with the foresight to create positive change.
In Your Eyes I See My Words
The homilies and speeches of Archbishop Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio from 2009 through his election as Pope Francis in 2013. These writings provide an intimate glimpse into the theological, philosophical, scientific, and cultural currents that forged the steady, loving, and nurturing leadership style with which Jorge Mario Bergoglio guided the Church in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Wounded Shepherd
Austen Ivereigh’s colorful, clear-eyed portrait of Pope Francis takes us inside the Vatican’s urgent debate over the future of the Church. This deeply contextual biography centers on the tensions generated by the Pope’s attempt to turn the Church away from power and tradition and outwards to engage humanity with God’s mercy.
The Tweetable Pope
Michael O’Loughlin uses Pope Francis’s almost daily “tweets” to his 21 million followers to explain why this Pope has captured the world’s imagination and to explore his strategy and vision for the Catholic Church. Grouped by the Pope’s most pressing concerns—forgiveness, mercy, injustice, poverty, war, joy, the environment, and more—The Tweetable Pope uses Francis’ pithy 140-character (or fewer) missives as a prism to view the biographical, historical, and spiritual context of his messages and how each is part of a larger vision.
Pope Francis
From the moment he was elected into the papacy, Pope Francis captured the attention of the world with his humility, charisma, and reformist spirit. This one-of-a-kind, illustrated biography of the first Jesuit pope offers more than 250 photographs and 50 removable documents from Francis's life.
Pope Francis Among the Wolves
A behind-the-scenes view of the power struggles within the Vatican, Marco Politi’s account balances the perspectives of Pope Francis’s supporters, Benedict’s sympathizers, and those disappointed members of the laity who feel alienated by the institution’s secrecy, financial corruption, and refusal to modernize.
The Business Francis Means
An overview of Pope Francis’s teachings on money and morality that bridges the gap between political sides. The Business Francis Means will be of great interest to the Catholic layperson, especially one involved in political or economic life.
The Great Reformer
A biography of Pope Francis that describes how this revolutionary thinker used the power of his position to challenge and redirect one of the world's most formidable religions. An expansive and deeply contextual work, at its heart The Great Reformer is about the intersection of faith and politics—the tension between the Pope's innovative vision for the Church and the obstacles he faced in an institution still strongly defined by its conservative past.
