Skip to content 
New York — Journal entries kept by Pope Francis before and during his papacy will be published this fall for the first time.
Image, an imprint of Penguin Random House Christian Publishing Group, announced Monday that “The Private Diary of Pope Francis” will be published in English and four other languages on November 24.
According to Image, the book will provide a “wonderful look” at the late pontiff’s “hopes and fears, struggles and prayers.” It will be published in partnership with Libreria Editrice Vaticana, or LEV, the Vatican Publishing House.
The writings date from December 1992, just over ten years before he became pope, to August 2024, eight months before he died and was succeeded by Pope Leo XIV. The English edition of his private reflections was translated from the Spanish version by Sister Bernadette Reis and edited and annotated by Víctor Manuel Fernández, an Argentine cardinal who heads the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Francis was from Argentina and the first Latin American pope in history. He was known for his down-to-earth style and his emphasis on humility, including visits to poor countries with persecuted Christian minorities rather than the traditional strongholds of Catholicism. At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, from an empty St. Peter’s Square, he asked “all of us to row together, each of us needs to comfort the other.”
At times, it was controversial. He angered some conservatives with his outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and was widely criticized for saying that those who accused Chilean Bishop Juan Barros of helping to protect the pedophile, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, hated. In 2016, referring to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s vow to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, Francis said that anyone who builds a wall to keep out migrants “is not a Christian”.
During his lifetime, Francis’ books included “The Name of God Is Mercy” and the memoir “Hope.” He died on April 21, 2025 at the age of 88.
