I
n a now-famous interview soon after Pope Francis’ election, an interviewer asked the new pope, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?”
Pope Francis famously replied, in very Ignatian fashion, “I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” From the moment he stepped out onto the balcony in front of St. Peter’s Square and asked the people to bless him, and many times more as his papacy unfolded, Pope Francis has given us many reasons to really wonder, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” Who is this man, and where on earth did he come from? Mark Shriver ’86, deeply moved by Pope Francis’ humility and mercy, wondered the same thing, and finally decided to find out. He traveled to Argentina, where he met with people who knew Pope Francis throughout the course of his life: as a child, as a young man discerning his call in life, as a young Jesuit superior during the Argentine Dirty War, as a man sent into exile in mid-life after a polarizing term as Jesuit provincial and as a bishop who lived simply and was at home among the poor and powerless. Following the ups and downs of Bergoglio’s life led Shriver to reflect on his own life. He shares these reflections openly and honestly as the story develops. Holy Cross and his roommates are integral to Shriver’s account of his own self, as you’ll read in the excerpt printed here. And, as Shriver shared with students when he spoke on campus in November, the five-day Spiritual Exercises retreat he made as a senior, under the direction of the late Rev. Joseph J. LaBran, S.J., had a profound impact on his life. He realizes—and tells powerful stories that make us realize— just how much the person we know as Pope Francis today is the outcome of a long pilgrimage of Bergoglio’s own. In reading Pilgrimage, we see clearly how and why this man Bergoglio rekindled the flame of Shriver’s spiritual life, and how he challenges Shriver to live in new ways with the poor and the marginalized. —Thomas Landy
PILGRIMAGE / 49