Pilgrimage

Starred review from September 12, 2016
Former Maryland state legislator Shriver (A Good Man) exquisitely crafts this look at the life of Pope Francis. To date, the significant biographies of Francis—including Elisabetta Piqué’s Life and Revolution, Austen Ivereigh’s The Great Reformer, and Paul Vallely’s Untying the Knots—have been written by Latin American or British authors, leaving a space for Shriver to add the democratic, liberal, and personal perspectives of American Catholicism to the pope’s story. Significantly, Shriver opens his telling in Cordoba, Argentina, in the 1990s, during what Francis called “a time of great interior crisis.” This two-year period of exile from his Jesuit order became a period of desolation of the soul that led to the conversion of Francis (then Bergoglio) from “pious patriarch” to the “gregarious shepherd” the world knows today. “How a person changes has always been the narrative that most interests me,” Shriver writes. He interviews Francis’s students and colleagues from that era, and in these interviews, readers glimpse the teología del pueblo (theology of the people) that shapes the pope today. In this excellent book, Shriver takes readers on a pilgrimage to numerous significant people and places in the life of Pope Francis.

November 15, 2016
Shriver, son of Eunice Kennedy and Sargent Shriver, writes in his introduction that following the deaths of his parents and others close to him, he fell into a spiritual crisis, manifested as a yearning for a church he could believe in again. Then Pope Francis came on the scene, and a hopeful Shriver wanted to know more. So began a personal and literal journey as Shriver went to Argentina and beyond to trace the life of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The premise, that one could learn about the man through the environment from which he sprang and the people who nourished him, is ably born out here. Playmates, friends, teachers, and many of the Jesuits (and a rabbi) who walked beside Bergoglio on his spiritual path are interviewed. There is also solid background about the political upheaval in Argentina during Bergoglio's time there. There's no interview with the pope, though Shriver tried to get one. The non-interview, as it turned out, affected the author profoundly. Both a fascinating portrait of a man and a nourishing account of spiritual yearning.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 1, 2016

Having written a book reflecting on the role of Catholicism in the life of his father, Sargent Shriver, the author (A Good Man) was asked to write a similar book on Pope Francis. Like many others, Shriver reexamined his relationship to the church after the election of a new Pope who seemed so unlike those before him. Shriver traveled to Argentina to interview many people who knew Francis intimately, both friends and those who had issues with him, as well as several of the poor with whom Father Bergoglio would interact even after he became a cardinal. At once a portrait of the young Bergoglio, the milieu out of which he came, and of a sometimes disaffected Catholic (Shriver himself) who has come to a new appreciation of the church, this book will especially appeal to those who want to learn more about Francis's origins. VERDICT While many good books have been written about Pope Francis, most notably Austin Ivereigh's The Great Reformer, Shriver's conversations with many of the people who knew Jorge Bergoglio in Argentina and were willing to relate personal details about their relationship with him set this book apart. [See Prepub Alert, 5/23/16.]--Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2016

Shriver, head of Save the Children's U.S. Programs and author of A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sargent Shriver, wanted to discover what Jorge Mario Bergoglio was like before he became Pope Francis. To that end, he spoke to priests, rabbis, and ordinary folks who knew him well, including the high school students he taught and the Jesuit novice director who thought he should leave the Novitiate.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2016

Having written a book reflecting on the role of Catholicism in the life of his father, Sargent Shriver, the author (A Good Man) was asked to write a similar book on Pope Francis. Like many others, Shriver reexamined his relationship to the church after the election of a new Pope who seemed so unlike those before him. Shriver traveled to Argentina to interview many people who knew Francis intimately, both friends and those who had issues with him, as well as several of the poor with whom Father Bergoglio would interact even after he became a cardinal. At once a portrait of the young Bergoglio, the milieu out of which he came, and of a sometimes disaffected Catholic (Shriver himself) who has come to a new appreciation of the church, this book will especially appeal to those who want to learn more about Francis's origins. VERDICT While many good books have been written about Pope Francis, most notably Austin Ivereigh's The Great Reformer, Shriver's conversations with many of the people who knew Jorge Bergoglio in Argentina and were willing to relate personal details about their relationship with him set this book apart. [See Prepub Alert, 5/23/16.]--Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.