Pope, in new book, talks about personal 'lockdowns' that changed his life

By Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While the coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions have interrupted people's lives and brought suffering on a global scale, every individual -- including the pope -- has or will experience traumatic interruptions in their lives, Pope Francis said in a new book.

"Illness, the failure of a marriage or a business, some great disappointment or betrayal," he said, are moments that "generate a tension, a crisis that reveals what is in our hearts."

In "Let Us Dream: The Path to A Better Future," a book written with author Austen Ivereigh, Pope Francis said he had experienced three "COVID moments" in his lifetime: lung problems that threatened his life when he was 21; his "displacement" in Germany in 1986 for studies; and when he was sent away to Cordoba, Argentina, for almost two years in the early 1990s.

"Let Us Dream" will be published Dec. 1 by Simon & Schuster. The section on what the pope called his "personal COVIDs" was excerpted in Italian newspapers Nov. 23.

In those major moments of challenge and pain, Pope Francis wrote, "what I learned was that you suffer a lot, but if you allow it to change you, you come out better. But if you dig in, you come out worse."

Writing about his diseased lung, the pope said, "I remember the date: Aug. 13, 1957. I got taken to hospital by a (seminary) prefect who realized mine was not the kind of flu you treat with aspirin. Straightaway they took a liter and a half of water out of the lung, and I remained there fighting for my life."

He was in his second year at the diocesan seminary and it was his "first experience of limit, of pain and loneliness," he said. "It changed the way I saw life."

"For months, I didn't know who I was and whether I would live or die. The doctors had no idea whether I'd make it either," the pope wrote. "I remember hugging my mother and saying: 'Just tell me if I'm going to die."

After three months in the hospital, "they operated to take out the upper right lobe of one of the lungs," he said. "I have some sense of how people with coronavirus feel as they struggle to breathe on ventilators."

One of the nurses, "Sister Cornelia Caraglio, saved my life" by doubling his antibiotics, he said. "Because of her regular contact with sick people, she understood better than the doctor what they needed, and she had the courage to act on her knowledge."

Pope Francis said he also learned the meaning of "cheap consolations."

"People came in to tell me I was going to be fine, how with all that pain I'd never have to suffer again -- really dumb things, empty words," he said.

Instead, he learned from a nun who had prepared him for his first Communion and would come and hold his hand, how important it was to sit with people, touch them and keep words to a minimum.

The time in the hospital recovering, he said, gave him the time and space he needed to "rethink my vocation" and explore his longing to enter a religious order rather than the diocesan priesthood. It was then that he decided to join the Jesuits.

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In this uplifting and practical book, written in collaboration with his biographer, Austen Ivereigh, the preeminent spiritual leader explains why we must—and how we can—make the world safer, fairer, and healthier for all people now.

In the COVID crisis, the beloved shepherd of over one billion Catholics saw the cruelty and inequity of our society exposed more vividly than ever before. He also saw, in the resilience, generosity, and creativity of so many people, the means to rescue our society, our economy, and our planet. In direct, powerful prose, Pope Francis urges us not to let the pain be in vain.

He begins  Let Us Dream by exploring what this crisis can teach us about how to handle upheaval of any kind in our own lives and the world at large. With unprecedented candor, he reveals how three crises in his own life changed him dramatically for the better. By its very nature, he shows, crisis presents us with a choice: we make a grievous error if we try to return to some pre-crisis state. But if we have the courage to change, we can emerge from the crisis better than before.

Francis then offers a brilliant, scathing critique of the systems and ideologies that conspired to produce the current crisis, from a global economy obsessed with profit and heedless of the people and environment it harms, to politicians who foment their people’s fear and use it to increase their own power at their people’s expense. He reminds us that Christians’ first duty is to serve others, especially the poor and the marginalized, just as Jesus did.

Finally, the Pope offers an inspiring and actionable blueprint for building a better world for all humanity by putting the poor and the planet at the heart of new thinking. For this plan, he draws not only on sacred sources, but on the latest findings from renowned scientists, economists, activists, and other thinkers. Yet rather than simply offer prescriptions, he shows how ordinary people acting together despite their differences can discover unforeseen possibilities.

Along the way, he offers dozens of wise and surprising observations on the value of unconventional thinking, on why we must dramatically increase women’s leadership in the Church and throughout society, on what he learned while scouring the streets of Buenos Aires with garbage-pickers, and much more.

Let Us Dream is an epiphany, a call to arms, and a pleasure to read. It is Pope Francis at his most personal, profound and passionate. With this book and with open hearts, we can change the world.