The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Since his surprising election on March 13, 2013, Pope Francis has attracted an astonishing amount of attention from people who are awed by his simplicity, modesty and indomitable will. Not surprisingly, this has led to an almost insatiable demand for books and other published materials on the popular pontiff.
In the weeks leading up to Francis’s anticipated arrival in the Philippines on January 15, bookstores across the country have been prominently featuring books on him and other papal paraphernalia on their window displays. Some expect that sales of these books would surge in the days ahead, if the local media’s intense pre-visit coverage is any indication.
For its part, National Bookstore, the country’s largest bookstore chain, boasts of several books on Francis that not only narrate his life so far, but also aspire to illuminate and inspire readers, Catholic or not. One of these is On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family and the Church in the 21st Century (April 2013, Random House Inc., P795), the English-language version of the original Spanish-language book that was published in Argentina in 2010. The authorship of the book is credited to then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his good friend, Argentine Rabbi Abraham Skorka, whose discussions on a variety of subjects make up the work.
In a review posted on Amazon.com, Rabbi Eric J. Greenberg, the director of the US Department of Interfaith Affairs Anti-Defamation League, says On Heaven and Earth is a “remarkable book” that “wonderfully demonstrates the warm and positive relationship Pope Francis has developed with Jews and Judaism.”
“These honest and respectful exchanges between Bergoglio and Skorka on a wide range of sensitive and complex topics—God, religion, fundamentalism, politics and the Holocaust—is a model not only for Jews and Catholics, but for all those seeking productive interfaith dialogue in helping to repair a broken world,” he adds.
Horrific ‘war’
Another is Pope Francis: Untying the Knots (August 2013, Bloomsbury Publishing, P616.29), by British journalist Paul Vallely. In this biography, Vallely explores how Francis’s conduct during his six-year stint as the provincial, or leader, of Argentina’s Jesuits during that country’s horrific “Dirty War,” and its significant impact on other people transformed him from a “conservative authoritarian into a humble friend of the poor.”
“No biography, however diligent, can capture someone’s interior life. But what this book does demonstrate is that Pope Francis is a tougher, more complex figure than meets the eye. A turbulent life has given the pontiff a subtle sense of the realities of power, and the courage to act on it. Since becoming pope in March [2013], he has taken three separate initiatives to clean up the moral and financial corruption afflicting the Vatican. Anybody who reads this book will eagerly await his next move,” The Economist magazine says in its review in August 2013.
In his July 2013 review, Peter Stanford of the United Kingdom’s Sunday Times newspaper writes, “Vallely’s biography of Francis…stands, in terms of seriousness of purpose and depth of understanding, head and shoulders above other recent rushed-cuttings jobs.”
Francis’s life-altering time as Jesuit provincial is also tackled in The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope (November 2014, MacMillan US, P1,205) by Austen Ivereigh. Writing for The New York Times in December 2014, Rev. James Martin SJ, editor at large at America magazine, calls the book a “fine biography,” noting that Ivereigh “shows how the qualities that have made Francis a beloved pope were long part of his life, first as a young Catholic, then as Jesuit novice director and provincial, and, finally, as bishop and archbishop.”
“These attributes included a deep piety nourished by his family, the fierce intelligence recalled by former classmates and a lasting love for the poor,” he writes.
For her part, Molly Worthen, also writing for The New York Times, praises The Great Reformer as a “gracefully written and meticulously researched account of Francis’s life,” writing that “it aims to exonerate the pope once and for all from the charges of his critics, and to correct both liberals and conservatives who misunderstand his ‘radicalism.’”
Refreshing approach
Business, community, political and religious leaders may find Chris Lowney’s Pope Francis: Why He Leads the Way He Leads (September 2013, Loyola Press, P715.09) a fascinating read, for it portrays Francis as a very credible leader whose refreshing approach to his role as head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics is worth emulating. That Lowney was a Jesuit seminarian before entering the world of finance—and later becoming a managing director at JP Morgan & Co.—has given him a unique perspective on the leadership style of the former archbishop of Buenos Aires.
“Pope Francis…is that rare and splendid work that leaves you keenly excited and spiritually moved. The writing is lucid, vivid, inviting and rich. It’s a major achievement. I strongly recommend it to any Christian in a leadership role,” author Rev. Joseph Tetlow SJ gushes on Barnes&Noble’s website.
“If there were ever a workbook for ministry formation for leaders, Lowney provides the resource here, in this compendium of stories both inspiring and humorous; in an articulation of principles in language clear and translatable; and in a portable tool that worked for Francis over 40 years ago and surely can work for our leaders today,” Fr. Joseph J. Driscoll says in his review, which was posted on the Catholic Health Association of the United States website.
Of course, those who really want to know Francis, especially his views, and see how he skillfully articulates them, can do no better than read his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei (The Light of Faith) (July 2013, Pauline Books and Media, P231.79)—the first draft of this document was completed by Pope Benedict XVI before his unexpected resignation in February 2013—and first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) (November 2013, Pauline Books and Media, P374.59).
Both works received considerable media attention upon their release; the latter, in particular, earned lengthy notices from analysts and reviewers for its forceful emphasis on the Church’s missionary role and its stinging criticism of what has been called the tyranny of markets.
All these titles are just a handful of the dozens of books about and by Francis that can satisfy even the most curious readers, at least for now. That so many have been published in the 22 months since Francis’s election shows how complicated and fascinating he is, and how a lot of people are yet to figure him out.
As some of the authors and reviewers of those books have noted, Francis has already started to fulfill the awesome mandate given to him: reform and revive the Church and its administration, and make Catholicism more relevant in the 21st century. TMM