Behind the office: how Francis I grew up and what moves him

Man muss ihn wirklich nicht bemitleiden, aber so ein Papst hat es nicht leicht. Es ist schon schwer, Menschen nicht zu enttäuschen, wenn etwa Freunde oder Verwandte das urteilende Publikum stellen – aber was, wenn buchstäblich Hunderte Millionen Gläubige das eigene Tun beobachten? Franziskus hat jetzt seine Autobiographie geschrieben, laut Verlag die erste eines Pontifex zu Lebzeiten.

Der Argentinier schreibt darin über Volksgläubigkeit und Marienverehrung, beklagt Kriege und Armut, schwärmt von Höflichkeit, Hoffnung und Humor. Und auch wenn Experten spotten, das sei weniger eine Autobiographie als eine Auto­hagiographie – die Beschreibung eines Heiligenlebens – geworden: Indem er zeigt, wie er gesehen werden möchte, gibt er doch einiges von sich selbst preis.

Wurzeln. 2001, kurz vor der Ernennung zum Erzbischof, besuchte Franziskus die Heimat seiner Vorfahren, einen Bauernhof im piemontischen Portacomaro, unweit von Asti: „Ich habe die Hügel betrachtet, die Weinberge, das große Haus. Ich habe in der Erde gegraben und eine Handvoll mitgenommen.“

Milieu. Nicht lange nach seiner Geburt 1936 bezogen er und seine Eltern in Buenos Aires eine Wohnung in Flores, einem lebendigen Mittelschichtviertel von Buenos Aires, in dem viele italienische und spanische Einwanderer sich niedergelassen hatten. Der Laden, den die Großeltern väterlicherseits damals hatten, war praktisch nebenan, und auch andere Verwandten wohnten ganz in der Nähe: „In gewisser Weise wurden wir dort zu einer einzigen großen Familie.“ Zum Mittagessen am Sonntagmittag nach der obligatorischen Messe versammelten sich manchmal bis zu 30 Leuten zu fünf oder sechs Gängen plus Dessert: „Wir waren nicht gerade wohlhabend, aber in der Küche blieben wir bei der italienischen Tradition.“

Cornerstone. His grandmother Rosa often consumed little Jorge, precisely because his mother got another four children, and thus became “a cornerstone of my existence”. After the firstborn Mario, she had become more pregnant for six more times, but the child had lost every time the child was lost because of a genetic defect that was not yet known. “She accepted everything that life brought with her, even if it was painful events.” Jorge loved her very much: “She was the first to bring me the Christian message.”

Kicker. One of the early passions of future Pontifex was football. Around the corner from his parents' house there was a small place where he kicked with brother and friends after school, with a ball made of rag. He was not a good player: “I was often in the goal.”

Profession. With grandma and mom, the young Jorge liked to go to the street markets – where the butcher was most impressed: the white apron, the big knife that was in the front in a pocket, “the spectacle, like the man with precise, rapid cutting the meat divided ”. This did not seem to be earned, and so the future Pope replied to the usual question of what he wanted to be later, with: “Butcher”.

Heart of Jesus. His parents had a domestic help, Concetta, originally from Sicily, whose husband had fallen in World War II and who now brought through their two children with great energy and many victims. Later, after a move, the family lost sight of her. 20 years later, the later Francis worked in Córdoba, she came to visit him. But the busy person “let her” with a carelessness that I haven't forgiven for a long time “, he was not there. But: “When I realized what I had done, I cried.” He prayed for years that he could find her again, and years later, he was cardinal, it happened, too, from pure coincidence. They made contact and keep in touch, he says; A few days before her death, she gave him a Herz-Jesu medallion that he wears under the soutane every day. Concetta died with 92 with a smile on the lips, “worthy of a person who has worked all his life”.

Melancholy. Since his youth, Francis has had an approach to a melancholy that he cannot explain: “She has accompanied me all my life, this melancholy. Not constantly, but it is part of my soul, a feeling that I have learned to recognize. “

Comfort. Francis himself says that dispute is very disturbed. As a boy, he often cried secretly when there was a family. One day his parents argued, which did not happen often. The mother ran out of the house, “probably to shop, but I was firmly convinced that she had left us”. And: “I was insertable.” A twenty -year -old neighboring daughter appeased him.

Eroticism. An early love, a certain Amalia Damonte who went into the same class as he, he wrote a letter as a boy that he absolutely wanted to marry her: “You or none!” Later, while Francis was in the seminar, there was a phase , in which he “followed the intellectual light and the beauty of a girl that I had met at the wedding of one of my uncle”. For a time his “head twisted a little”; He “couldn't even pray without having her picture in mind”.

Vocation. Francis dates his first heart for the priesthood on September 21, 1953, when he was 16th on a messenger he had to pass the church into which his family went, “and suddenly I had the feeling that someone called me”. In the building he found a priest unknown to him, who fulfilled his urgent wish. “The fact is that I stepped out of the confessional and was no longer the same person as before. And suddenly I knew that I would be a priest. “

Conclave. The fact that clergymen resist themselves to be elected to the bishop or even higher offices is a topos that is already known from the saints of the Middle Ages. Francis also emphasizes that he had not expected his pope election; He had already had the return flight ticket to Buenos Aires in his pocket. And his papal name? – an inspiration of the moment. When it became clear that he had reached the majority, a cardinal colleague hugged him and said: “Don't forget the poor!” The sentence had hit him “into the mark”, “and at that moment the name 'Franziskus' came to mind “.

Prevention. The ceremony for his funeral – “I have a very pragmatic attitude” – has already simplified: “I was assured that everything is prepared,” he writes. And concludes the chapter: “Even if I have experienced it infinitely, I asked the Lord for his grace again: it happens whenever you want. But you know that I am somewhat squeamish when it comes to physical pain. So please do not hurt too. “