Introduction
IT IS MONDAY, August 19, 2013. I have an ap-
pointment with Pope Francis at 10 a.m. in Santa
Marta. I, however, inherited from my father the
habit of arriving early for everything. The people
who welcome me tell me to make myself comfort-
able in one of the parlors. I do not have to wait for
long, and after a few minutes I am brought over to
the lift. This short wait gave me the opportunity
to remember the meeting in Lisbon of the editors
of a number of journals of the Society of Jesus, at
which the proposal emerged to publish jointly an
interview with the pope. I had a discussion with
the other editors, during which we proposed some
questions that would express everyone's interests.
I emerge from the lift, and I see the pope already
waiting for me at the door. In meeting him here, I
had the pleasant impression that I was not crossing
any threshold.
I enter his room, and the pope invites me to sit
in his easy chair. He himself sits on a chair that is
higher and stiffer because of his back problems.
The setting is simple, austere. The workspace oc-

4 POPE FRANCIS
cupied by the desk is small. I am impressed not
only by the simplicity of the furniture, but also
by the objects in the room. There are only a few.
These include an icon of St. Francis, a statue of
Our Lady of Luján (patron saint of Argentina), a
crucifix, and a statue of St. Joseph sleeping, very
similar to the one which I had seen in his office
at the Colegio Máximo de San Miguel, where he
was rector and also provincial superior. The spiri-
tuality of Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not made of
“harmonized energies,” as he would call them,
but of human faces: Christ, St. Francis, St. Jo-
seph, and Mary.
The pope welcomes me with that smile that has
already traveled all around the world, that same
smile that opens hearts. We begin speaking about
many things, but above all about his trip to Brazil.
The pope considers it a true grace.
I ask him if he has had time to rest. He tells me
that yes, he is doing well, but above all that World
Youth Day was for him a “mystery.” He says that he
is not used to talking to so many people: “I man-
age to look at individual persons, one at a time, to
enter into personal contact with whomever I have
in front of me. I'm not used to the masses.”
I tell him that it is true, that people notice it, and
that it makes a big impression on everyone. You can
tell that whenever he is among a crowd of people his
eyes actually rest on individual persons. Then the

A Big Heart Open to God 5
television cameras project the images, and everyone
can see them. This way he can feel free to remain
in direct contact, at least with his eyes, with the in-
dividuals he has in front of him. To me, he seems
happy about this: that he can be who he is, that
he does not have to alter his ordinary way of com-
municating with others, even when he is in front
of millions of people, as happened on the beach at
Copacabana.
Before I switch on the voice recorder we also
talk about other things. Commenting on one of
my own publications, he tells me that the two con-
temporary French thinkers that he holds dear are
Henri de Lubac, SJ, and Michel de Certeau, SJ. I
also speak to him about more personal matters. He
too speaks to me on a personal level, in particu-
lar about his election to the pontificate. He tells
me that when he began to realize that he might be
elected, on Wednesday, March 13, during lunch,
he felt a deep and inexplicable peace and interior
consolation come over him along with a great dark-
ness, a deep obscurity about everything else. And
those feelings accompanied him until his election
later that day.
Actually I would have liked to continue speak-
ing with him in this very personal manner for
much longer, but I take up my papers filled with
questions that I had written down before, and I
turn on the voice recorder. First of all I thank him

6 POPE FRANCIS
on behalf of all the editors of the various Jesuit
magazines that will publish this interview.
Just a bit before the audience that the pope
granted on June 14 to the Jesuits of La Civiltà Cat-
tolica, the pope had spoken to me about his great
difficulty in giving interviews. He had told me that
he prefers to think carefully rather than give quick
responses to on-the-spot interviews. He feels that
the right answers come to him after having already
given his initial response. “I did not recognize my-
self when I responded to the journalists asking me
questions on the return flight from Rio de Janeiro,”
he tells me. But it is true: many times in this in-
terview the pope interrupted what he was saying
in response to a question several times in order to
add something to an earlier response. Talking with
Pope Francis is a kind of volcanic flow of ideas that
are bound up with each other. Even taking notes
gives me an uncomfortable feeling, as if I were try-
ing to suppress a surging spring of dialogue. It is
clear that Pope Francis is more used to having con-
versations than to giving lectures.