Pope Francis has often said the papacy is for life. But a resignation has never been out of the question.
POPE FRANCIS
This is with all honesty. It is not a catastrophe. You can change popes; you can change them. There is no problem with that. But I think I have to limit myself a little bit with these efforts.
After 11 years and numerous books written about him, the life of Pope Francis will finally be told in his own words in the new book, Life: My Story Through History.
The Pope reiterates that if he were to resign due to medical problems, he would not be called Pope emeritus. Rather he would be “simply Bishop emeritus of Rome” and serve as a confessor. But he repeats: “this is a distant hypothesis” because he doesn't have “such serious reasons to think of renunciation.”
In this autobiography, the Pope recounts memories from his childhood in Argentina to the moments before the conclave that elected him in 2013.
Pope Francis also dives deeper into his relationship with Pope Benedict XVI. He says he was saddened to see how the Pope emeritus was “exploited with ideological and political purposes by unscrupulous people.”
Life: My Story Through History will be published by HarperCollins on March 19 in Europe and the Americas. This is the first time the major U.S.-based company is publishing a book by Pope Francis.
KG
