Which Pope Francis Biography Should I Buy for My Aunt?
September 27, 2015 3:48 PM

My aunt mentioned that she would like a biography of Pope Francis. So I naively thought I'd just go online and buy her one. But of course it turns out that there are lots and lots of biographies. Which one should I get?

My aunt is Catholic and practicing, but not particularly interested in the minutae of theology and probably also not that interested in the bureaucratic details of running the Vatican. She is all about things like his humility, his reaching out to people, his compassion for the poor and his social justice promotion.

We will be going to the Vatican soon, though I'm not sure if that would be relevant.
posted by If only I had a penguin... to Religion & Philosophy (6 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
Paul Vallely, author of "Pope Francis: The Struggle For The Soul Of Catholicism," was just interviewed on "Fresh Air." The transcript may give you some feel for his approach.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:01 PM on September 27, 2015


It's not a full biography, but my friend coauthored this article about him in 2013 that's really interesting. Maybe get her a back copy if she doesn't already have it?
posted by bedhead at 8:19 PM on September 27, 2015


Pope Francis: Our Brother, Our Friend.
posted by Rob Rockets at 8:29 PM on September 27, 2015


It's not a biography but it might still be a good option: On Heaven and Earth was written by Francis himself (when he was a cardinal) and Abraham Skorka, a rabbi. It is written as a dialog about important spiritual issues of our day and would give your aunt an easily-digestible perspective on the Pope's thoughts and beliefs as well as an interesting view on how a different faith thinks about the same questions. Short chapters, easy to read and she can easily skim the parts that are less interesting.
posted by metahawk at 12:10 AM on September 28, 2015


How much effort are you wanting to put into this? You could try Amazon buyer reviews, book reviews in the Catholic press, speak to a librarian at a Catholic university (or similar), ...
posted by GeeEmm at 2:41 PM on September 28, 2015


Anything from this publisher is generally pretty decent. That Our Brother, Our Friend linked above is only ten bucks right now.
posted by resurrexit at 2:22 PM on September 30, 2015


« Older Mysterious dog injury/illness   |   What will it be like having a baby in the NICU for... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.