Pope Francis has written a book called Life: My Story Through History – or, rather, he has collaborated with a journalist, Fabio Marchese Ragona, of the Second World War, he recalled his earliest memories as a little boy being cared for by his grandmother, Rosa; the Holocaust prompts him to recall the sadness of the Jewish children he played with; the arrival of the junta in Argentina recalls his atheist friend Esther, a biochemist, who was tortured and killed; Covid causes him to reflect on the prayer he made in St Peter’s Square, alone, at the height of the pandemic. It is also interesting as a reflection on his direction as leader of the Church.