Austen Ivereigh is a British biographer of Pope Francis who during the papal transition reported for The Tablet and commentated for the BBC. His most recent book is First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis (Loyola Press, 2024).
In Christopher White's 'insta-book' on Leo's early papacy, Pope Francis is a central figure. In Matthew Bunson's biography of the new pope, Francis hardly exists.
In the final years of Francis's papacy, Robert Prevost became one of the pontiff's closest collaborators. What clues does their bond hold about Leo's pontificate?
“As Francis has magnificently shown us, a pope serves the People of God with a total self-giving, ad vitam: in sickness or in health, strong or frail, able-bodied or wheelchair-bound, clear in voice or raspy and breathless.”
In the early decades of the twenty-first century, historians will say, the Church sought a new way of operating that would allow it to travel into a new era.
