Pope Francis, intimate confessions

Our great reporter Caroline Pigozzi has selected the confidences and meditations of the Sovereign Pontiff in an instructive primer.

This March 13, 2013, the evening when Jorge Mario Bergoglio appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Caroline Pigozzi quickly flew to Argentina. Without further ado, it was a matter of following in the footsteps of the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, in order to elucidate the enigma of this Jesuit pope who came from the “periphery” of the world, according to his own expression. Papa Francesco’s personality already stood out against the style of his predecessors. He refused to wear the traditional red shoes of the Bishop of Rome. He deserted the papal apartments to move into the collective residence of Sainte-Marthe. He even decided to take his meals in the common dining room, surrounded by people. But François was immediately distinguished by another trait: his wide use of speech and the importance of words.

After twenty-eight trips to his side, many secrets collected in his notebooks and two exclusive interviews for Paris Match, Caroline Pigozzi immersed herself, for months, in the thousands of pages of transcription that account for her catechesis: audiences general of Wednesday, homilies of the daily masses, Sunday angelus place Saint-Pierre, Instagram account. It emerges from this journalistic work of ant, precise and rigorous, “François in pocket”, an intimate and surprising alphabet of 222 pages mini-format, where draws through his own words the indomitable temperament of a man who refuses to to be a prisoner of the Vatican decorum and of “single thought”, which he describes as “a form of intelligence autism”.

Every word counts for Bergoglio

“This pope speaks all the time, on all subjects, says Caroline Pigozzi. We, the Vaticanists, are exhausted! With his sense of derision, he does not hesitate to provoke, is indignant, jostles readily his entourage, using a concrete vocabulary, even brittle. He tackles with the same authority other themes than those related to religion. “Awakening of conscience”, he thinks in Spanish, expresses himself in a singing voice in an Italian often punctuated by Latin American formulas. The letter G stands for “People”, we read: “I viscerally need to go out on the street, to be with other people. “With the letter F as” Fiancée “:” I had a little fiancée when I was 17 years old. And at the seminar, a young girl made my head spin for a week. When, on the fringes of the Catholic universe, he denounces corruption, king money, contempt for indigenous peoples and commits to an integral ecology, François mixes simple words and the subtle language proper to the religious of his order . At 83 years of age, every second, every word counts for Bergoglio, a free and pragmatic spirit who has just created a diocese in Alaska, still on the outskirts!

Common Piedmontese origins sealed the link with this pope who, rare, sign of his small fine writing the foreword of the work and Caroline Pigozzi, faithful to the papal displacements. It is at an altitude of 10,000 meters, in his plane, that François, happy to travel, indulges the most. He does not fear journalists. “Benedict XVI looked at his feet, John Paul II stared you straight in the eye, explains Caroline Pigozzi, he always responds to you with reasoning, a pirouette or a parable. Then returning from Mexico, during a press conference in flight, the journalist suddenly asked: “Most Holy Father, what are you dreaming and in what language? – I will answer that I dream in Esperanto, he confided, my psychology is like that. I dream little with words. The best dreams come true through hope, patience, serenity. Thank you Carolina, but this question is so personal that I cannot say more. ”