Italian journalist and writer Fabio Marchese Ragona holds a copy of “Life: My Story Through History” as he poses for a picture before the start of an interview with the Associated Press, in Rome on March 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Pope Francis says he has no plans to resign and isn’t suffering from any health problems that would require doing so, saying in a new memoir he still has “many projects to bring to fruition.”

Mr. Francis, 87, made the comments in an autobiography, “Life: My Story Through History,” which is being published on March 19, the 11th anniversary of his installation as pope. Extensive excerpts were published on March 14 in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

In the memoir, written with Italian journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, Mr. Francis traces key moments of his life and their intersection with world events (World War II, Argentina’s military dictatorship and Vatican intrigue) and how they together inform his priorities as pope.

Significantly, he addresses recurring speculation about his health problems, criticism from conservatives and what both may mean for the future of his pontificate. Such questions have always surrounded the papacy but the prospect of a papal resignation only became a reality with the late Pope Benedict XVI ‘s historic 2013 retirement.

Mr. Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been battling bronchitis, the flu and cold on and off this winter and for the past two weeks has asked an aide to read most of his speeches. He had a chunk of his large intestine removed in 2021 and was hospitalized three times last year, including once to remove intestinal scar tissue from previous surgeries to address diverticulosis, or bulges in his intestinal wall.

In his memoir, he stressed that the papacy is a job for life but that “if a serious physical impediment” occurs, he has already penned a letter of resignation that is being held in the Secretariat of State.

“But this is, I repeat, a distant possibility, because I truly do not have any cause serious enough to make me think of resigning,” he said. “Some people may have hoped that sooner or later, perhaps after a stay in the hospital, I might make an announcement of that kind, but there is no risk of it: Thanks be to God, I enjoy good health, and as I have said, there are many projects to bring to fruition, God willing.”

Mr. Francis acknowledged that critics inside the Vatican have accused him of destroying the papacy and have tried to block the reforms that he was mandated by cardinals to enact as a result of his 2013 election.

“There was a strong desire to change things, to abandon certain attitudes, which, sadly, have proved difficult to eradicate,” he said. “Needless to say, there are always some who wish to put the brakes on reform, who want things always to stay as they were during the days of pope kings.”

In the memoir, Mr. Francis doubled down on his recent decision to allow Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples and denied that the criticism that erupted could split the church. Africa’s bishops as a whole, as well as individual conservative bishops around the world, have said they would not follow the new directive.

“I just want to say that God loves everyone, especially sinners. And if my brother bishops, according to their discernment, decide not to follow this path it doesn’t mean that this is the antechamber to schism, because the church’s doctrine is not brought into question,” Mr. Francis said.

He reaffirmed his support for civil unions while ruling out gay marriage, saying “It is right that these people who experience the gift of love should have the same legal protections as everyone else.”

He reasoned that Jesus spent time with people who lived on the margins of society “and that is what the church should be doing today with members of the LGBTQ+ community.”

“Make them feel at home, especially those who have been baptized and are in every respect among God’s people,” he said. “And those who have not been baptized and would like to be, or who would like to be godfathers or godmothers: let them be welcomed, please; let them follow a careful pathway to personal discernment.”

Pope Francis challenged world leaders on October 4 to commit to binding targets to slow climate change before it’s too late, warning that God’s increasingly warming creation is fast reaching a “point of no return.”

In an update to his landmark 2015 encyclical on the environment, Pope heightened the alarm about the “irreversible” harm to people and planet already under way and lamented that once again, the world’s poor and most vulnerable are paying the highest price.

“We are now unable to halt the enormous damage we have caused. We barely have time to prevent even more tragic damage,” Pope warned.

He took square aim at the United States, noting that per-capita emissions in the U.S. are twice as high as China and seven times greater than the average in poor countries. While individual, household efforts are helping, “we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact,” he said.

The document, “Praise God,” was released on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the pontiff’s nature-loving namesake, and was aimed at spurring negotiators to commit to binding climate targets at the next round of U.N. talks in Dubai.

Using precise scientific data, sharp diplomatic arguments and a sprinkling of theological reasoning, Pope delivered a moral imperative for the world to transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy with measures that that are “efficient, obligatory and readily monitored.”

“What is being asked of us is nothing other than a certain responsibility for the legacy we will leave behind, once we pass from this world,” he said.

As it is, Pope’s 2015 encyclical “Praise Be” was a watershed moment for the Catholic Church, the first time a Pope had used one of his most authoritative teaching documents to recast the climate debate in moral terms.

In that text, which has been cited by Presidents, patriarchs and premiers and spurred an activist movement in the the church, Pope called for a bold cultural revolution to correct a “structurally perverse” economic system where the rich exploit the poor, turning Earth into an “immense pile of filth.”

Even though encyclicals are meant to stand the test of time, Pope said he felt an update to his original was necessary because “our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.”

He excoriated people, including those in the church, who doubt mainstream climate science about heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, sarcastically deflating their arguments and showing his impatience with their profit-at-all-cost mentality.

Shaming them for their reliance on “allegedly solid scientific data,” he said the doubters’ arguments about potential job losses from a clean energy transition were bunk. And he cited data showing that increased emissions and the corresponding rise in global temperatures have accelerated since the Industrial Revolution, and particularly in the last 50 years.

“It is no longer possible to doubt the human – ‘anthropic’ – origin of climate change,” he asserted.

While acknowledging that “certain apocalyptic diagnoses” may not be grounded, he said inaction is no longer an option. The devastation is already under way, he said, including with some already “irreversible” harm done to biodiversity and species loss that will only snowball unless urgent action is taken now.

“Small changes can cause greater ones, unforeseen and perhaps already irreversible, due to factors of inertia,” he noted. “This would end up precipitating a cascade of events having a snowball effect. In such cases, it is always too late, since no intervention will be able to halt a process once begun.”

“Praise God,” was issued ahead of the next round of U.N. climate talks which begin November 30 in Dubai. Just as he did with his 2015 encyclical “Praise Be,” which was penned before the start of the Paris climate conference, Pope aimed to cast the issue of global warming in stark moral terms to spur courageous decisions by world leaders.

In the 2015 landmark Paris Agreement, countries of the world agreed to try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) or at least two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. It’s already warmed about 1.1 degrees (two degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-1800s.

Pope said that it was clear that the Paris target will be breached and will soon reach three degrees Celsius, and that already the effects are obvious, with oceans warming, glaciers melting and the world registering record heat waves and extreme weather events.

“Even if we do not reach this point of no return, it is certain that the consequences would be disastrous and precipitous measures would have to be taken, at enormous cost and with grave and intolerable economic and social effects,” he warned.

Since 2015, the world has spewed at least 288 billion metric tonnes (317 billion U.S. tonnes) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air, not including this year’s emissions, according to the scientists at Global Carbon Project. In August 2015, there were 399 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air and in August 2023 it was up to 420 parts per million, a 5% jump.

The record-hot summer of 2023 is one-third of a degree Celsius (six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) warmer than the summer of 2015, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Antarctica and Greenland have lost more than 2,100 billion metric tonnes (2,300 billion U.S. tonnes) of land ice, since the summer of 2015, according to NASA.

And in the United States alone, there have been 152 climate or weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage since the pope’s first climate message, with costs adjusted for inflation, according to NOAA. Pope concluded his document by noting the emissions rate in the U.S. and shaming it to do better.

“’Praise God’ is the title of this letter. For when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies,” he wrote.