one which suffered poverty as an effect of the economic crisis of 1929; yet past and current prosperity didn’t result in a change of their austere lifestyle. As a 13 year-old boy, Jorge Mario was invited to work with his father, and he obediently took on the assignments given to him. In these pages, the frequently quoted passage appears where he acknowledges with gratitude, in subsequent labors, the demanding and corrective hand that teaches him to do every job well till it’s finished. Within the family, the figure of his grandmother stands out. Bergoglio, revealing something that says a lot about him, tells that he carries some of her letters and other messages inside his Breviary. She gave a particularly significant piece of advice to her grandchildren, which Cardinal Bergoglio tells to his interlocutors (p. 124). Here we can see the noble familiar origin of his devotion to the Tabernacle, which, according to his grandmother, is the place “where the greatest and august martyr is,” and to the Virgin Mary at the Cross. Thus, one discovers a spiritual root strongly anchored in his family – something that makes him similar to his papal predecessors, along with his devotion to St. Joseph and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. While the interviewee doesn’t hide his strong reserve and preoccupation regarding the phenomenon he identifies as “spray religiosity,” he shows himself a defender of popular religiosity. He discerns the former phenomenon in New Age proposals with a pantheistic sense. Popular religiosity, on the other hand, is not only the antidote to “spray religiosity,” he says, but also the authentic basis of a “real hermeneutic, brought forth by the people itself,” which cauterizes the ideologist. The danger of degrading the religious, however, lies not only in this. There is also the widespread incoherence between principles and conduct that affects many Catholics, especially in the ruling classes, in view of which the Pope’s statements
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with regard to witnessing or the kerygmatic announcement become highly relevant today. Of the whole book, the fifth chapter is the most important, entitled Educating in the midst of Conflict. Here the Pope descends into the real difficulties posed by the current educational situation, and proposes to make progress by using what he calls the castaway culture: “the castaway faces the challenge of surviving with creativity; he either waits to be rescued or he starts his own rescue himself.” In the background of this conception we see the outline of Newman’s well-known formulation: know how to change in order to stay the same. In face of the educational difficulty as a result of authorities in crisis (parents, educators, etc.), which is the offspring of a society that questions everything, Cardinal Bergoglio calls for a new starting point, namely the great existential certainties, which, if coherently lived, make it possible for us to resume the path and move forward. The Greek roots of the term “crisis” give him the opportunity to explain the concept of crisis as “shaking” (p. 111), on one hand; and the weakening of authority this produces, on the other. Along the same explanatory line, he vindicates the “augere” (authority) as a necessary condition for “making grow” (p. 65). His view of the Church’s current situation is well reflected in chapter seven, The Challenge of Going to the Encounter of People. The way forward does not consist in removing some prescriptions, but in abandoning the “administrative” spirit and replacing it with that of the “missionary.” This requires, as he explained a few pages earlier, a painful delivery, a “patient travel,” thus deflating a bit the mysticism of efficiency at all costs. It is also a travelling towards the future carrying the memory of our roots, their deep pedagogy. This is well reflected in the following statement, where he resorts to classic literature: “Beware, Christian patience is not quietistic or passive. It is St.