Thomas J. Farrell

University of Minnesota Duluth

tfarrell@d.umn.edu

Abstract: In my lengthy, wide-ranging, and, at times, extremely associative and seemingly digressive “Probe: Pope Francis’ 2025 Autobiography, and Walter J. Ong’s Thought,” I succinctly highlight the work of the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter Jackson Ong, Jr. (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in the City of St. Louis. Subsequently, I succinctly highlight the first Jesuit pope’s 2025 book, with Carlo Musso, titled Hope: The Autobiography, translated by Richard Dixon. Because we learn much about the first Jesuit pope’s childhood growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I also discuss certain highlights of my childhood growing up in Kansas City, Kansas, in a somewhat lengthy “Appendix” at the end of my essay.

American liberals and progressives today are still bracing ourselves for still lies ahead of us during President Trump’s second term as president of the United States.

In the meantime, the liberal New York Times continues to report news not only about the aging Trump (born on July 14, 1946), but also about the aging and ailing doctrinally conservative Pope Francis (born on December 17, 1936).

The doctrinally conservative Pope Francis impressed American liberals and progressives with his widely read 2015 eco-encyclical. Pope Francis’ 2015 eco-encyclical is the most widely read example of the Roman Catholic Church’s social teaching. (Pope Francis’ 2015 eco-encyclical is available in English and other languages at the Vatican’s website.)

Over the years, I have frequently written OEN articles about the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis. See, for example, my widely read OEN article “Pope Francis on Evil and Satan” (dated March 24, 2019).

I have most recently alluded to Pope Francis by including a photo of him in my landmark OEN article “Robert Moore on Optimal Human Psychological Development: (dated September 17, 2024). In it, toward the end, I say, “This brings me now to how Moore’s vision of optimal psychological human development conflicts with the Roman Catholic Church’s moral vision of individual personal development. For all practical purposes, the Roman Catholic Church’s moral vision [on individual personal development] treats the Impotent Lover ‘shadow’ form of the masculine Lover archetype of maturity in the human psyche, and [the Impotent Lover ‘shadow’ form] of the feminine Lover archetype in the human psyche, as representing the ideal of [individual personal] moral development.”

My public criticism of the Roman Catholic Church’s moral vision of individual personal development began in October 2009 with my widely read first OEN article “Why Obama Should Shun the Pope’s Views on Abortion” (dated October 10, 2009).

But I hasten to add here that I have no particular quarrel with the Roman Catholic Church’s social teaching.

I characterize my recent OEN article as my landmark OEN article, because in it I launched my subsequent landmark series of OEN articles in which I discuss the fantasy skits in mom-son porn videos on the internet and in DVDs in connection with the work of the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1976) on the Chicago Theological Seminary.

For further reading about Robert Moore’s visionary theory of the eight archetypes of maturity and their sixteen accompanying “shadow” forms in the human psyche, see the following five books that Robert Moore co-authored with Douglas Gillette:

(1) King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (1990);

(2) The King Within: Accessing the King [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (2007; orig. ed., 1992a);

(3) The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (1992b);

(4) The Magician Within: Accessing the shaman [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (1993a);

(5) The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (1993b).

For further discussion of the Roman Catholic Church’s social teaching, see the English lay theologian Anna Rowlands’ fine 2021 book Towards a Politics of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in Dark Times.

Now, in the NYT news story titled “Pope Names Nun to Head a Vatican Department, a First for a Woman: Sister Simona Brambilla was appointed as the prefect of a Vatican office that oversees religious orders, but she may be alone at the top” (dated January 6, 2025), Elisabetta Povoleda reports from Rome.

In another NYT news story also dated January 6, 2025, Elizabeth Dias reports “Pope Names Vocal Supporter of migrants as Next Cardinal in Washington: The appointment of Robert W. McElroy [born on February 5, 1954] is a signal of the pope’s priorities, two weeks before Donald J. Trump’s term begins.”

Now, in yet another recent NYT news story, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, reported from Rome, in “Biden Awards Medal of Freedom to Pope Francis: President Biden [born on November 20, 1942], a Catholic, awarded the medal with distinction to the pontiff, to whom he has turned for personal guidance” (dated January 11, 2025).

Even though certain conservative American Catholics have been outspoken in their anti-Francis rhetoric over the years of his papacy (since March 2013), more liberal American Catholics have supported Pope Francis over the years of his papacy.

For a book-length discussion of anti-Francis Catholics, see the lay Italian author Massimo Borghesi’s book Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the field Hospital Church of Pope Francis, translated by Barry Hudock (2021; orig. Italian ed., 2021).

As much as we have already learned from the biographies of Pope Francis by Austen Ivereigh and Massimo Borghesi, we may wonder just how much more we may now learn from Pope Francis himself in his new 2025 300-page book Hope: The Autobiography. It turns out that we learn much more about his childhood in his new 2025 300-page book than we had previously learned about his childhood from Ivereigh’s two big biographies.

I am admittedly impressed that Pope Francis remembers so many events from his childhood in such vivid terms, I am not convinced that his various memories of his childhood actually deepen our understanding of him as a man – or as pope.

Now, in light of the fact that more liberal American Catholics have supported Pope Francis over the years of his papacy, it is not surprising that the liberal American Catholic newspaper the National Catholic Reporter featured an editorial strongly supporting McElroy’s appointment as the new archbishop of Washington, D.C. titled “Editorial: McElroy is an antidote to a US capital and church riven by division” (dated January 10, 2025).

According to the Wikipedia entry “Robert W. McElroy,” McElroy’s installation as the new archbishop of Washington, D.C., is scheduled for March 25, 2025 – after Cardinal McElroy turns 71 on February 5, 2025.

Now, in the present review essay, I have decided to write the present essay about Pope Francis’ new 2025 300-page book, written in Italian with Carlo Musso, and published in 18 languages on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, titled Hope: The Autobiography, translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon.

On the title page of the book, the author of the book is identified both by the name Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the name Pope Francis.

In Carlo Musso’s “A Brief Note by the Co-Author” (2025, pp. 293-294), we learn that Carlo Musso “has curated among other things the internationally bestselling works of Pope Francis, beginning with The Name of God Is Mercy [2016], published in a hundred countries and translated into thirty-two languages” (p. 294).

The now aging and ailing Argentinian Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1936) was elected Pope Francis in March 2013 — the first Jesuit ever elected pope.

My autobiography includes my years in the Jesuit order (1979-1987). Consequently, I took an interest in the first Jesuit pope.

Disclosure:

In addition to carefully studying the five books that Robert Moore co-authored with Douglas Gillette about the four archetypes of maturity and their accompanying eight “shadow” forms in the human psyche, I listened carefully to many of Robert Moore’s audiotapes of his public presentations at the C. G. Institute of Chicago. I also consulted Robert Moore as a psychotherapist in his home office in Chicago in July 2006.

You see, in July 2006, I was still experiencing the complicated grief I began to experience after the death of my favorite scholar and mentor and friend the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University — where I took five courses from him over the years. Father Ong died in a suburban St. Louis hospital in August 2003.

Now, I have written about Ong’s media ecology theory of cultural history in my somewhat lengthy OEN article “Walter J. Ong’s Philosophical Thought” (dated September 20, 2020).

In addition, I have surveyed Ong’s life and eleven of his books and selected articles in my award-winning book Walter Ong’s Contributions to Cultural Studies: The Phenomenology of the Word and I-Thou Communication (2000). My book received the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding book in the Field of Media Ecology, conferred by the Medica Ecology Association in June 2001.

For a briefly annotated bibliography of Ong’s 400 or so distinct publications (not counting translations or reprintings as distinct publications), see Thomas M. Walsh’s “Walter J. Ong, S.J.: A Bibliography 1929-2006” in the anthology Language, Culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J., edited by Sara van den Berg and Thomas M. Walsh (2011, pp. 185-245).

Now, Ong’s pioneering study of media ecology in our Western cultural history can be found in his massively researched 1958 book for specialists titled Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason – as in the Age of Reason. It is a history of the formal study of logic from Aristotle down to the French Renaissance logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572) and beyond. Ong’s massively researched 1958 book is also a pioneering study of the print culture that emerged in our Western cultural history after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in Europe in the mid-1450s.

Now, subsequently, Ong published his seminal 1967 book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History, the expanded version of Ong’s 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University.

In the fall of 1964, I took my first course from Father Ong at Saint Louis University (SLU), the Jesuit university in the City of St. Louis, Missouri. Over the years, I took five courses from Father Ong at SLU.

During my years of undergraduate studies (1962-1966), the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) significantly changed the Roman Catholic Church.

In any event, Ong famously differentiated our contemporary secondary oral culture (brought to us by the communications media that accentuate sound – such as television, telephone, radio, movies with soundtracks, tape-recording devices, and the like) from primary oral cultures and residual forms of primary oral cultures such as the ancient Hebrew culture that brought us the anthology of writings in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Greek culture that brought us Plato and Aristotle and the Western tradition of philosophy. In our Western cultural history, the visualist tendency of cognitive processing associated with phonetic alphabetic literacy in ancient Hebrew culture and in ancient Greek culture dominated the prestige culture for centuries in ancient and medieval manuscript culture – only to be followed by the hyper-visualist tendency of cognitive processing that emerged in the print culture that emerged in our Western cultural history with the emergence of the Gutenberg printing press in Europe in the mid-1450s.

I have written about ancient Hebrew culture as a residually oral culture in my article “Walter Ong and Harold Bloom Can Help Us Understand the Hebrew Bible” in Explorations in Media Ecology (2012).

For further discussion of visualist tendencies in cognitive processing, see the “Index” entry on aural-to-visual shift in Ong’s massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (p. 396).

Taking certain hints from Ong, the Canadian Renaissance specialist and cultural historian and pioneering media ecology theorist Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980; Ph.D. in English, Cambridge University, 1943) of St. Mike’s at the University of Toronto published The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962; for specific page references to Ong’s works on Ramus and Ramist logic, see the “Bibliographic References” [pp. 286-287]).

But also see Ong’s later discussion of orally based thought and expression in his most widely read and accessible book Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982, pp. 36-57).

Now, from the time of his big breakthrough insight in the early 1950s onward, Ong consistently worked with the orality-literacy contrast. Ong’s orality-literacy contrast exactly parallels what the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist C. G. Jung (1875-1961) refers to as “Two Kinds of Thinking” in Part One, Chapter II of his book Symbols of Transformation, translated by R. F. C. Hull, second edition (1967, pp. 7-33). What Jung refers to as fantasy thinking involving images and associative thinking is the equivalent of what Ong refers to as primary oral thought and expression. What Jung refers to as directed thinking involving logic is the equivalent of what Ong refers to phonetic alphabetic literacy and literate modes of thought and expression.

For all practical purposes, what Jung refers to as fantasy thinking involving images and associative thinking is also the equivalent of what the classicist Eric A. Havelock refers to as the imagistic Homeric mind in his landmark book Preface to Plato (1963). For all practical purposes, what Jung refers to as directed thinking involving logic is also the equivalent of what Havelock refers to as the more abstract Platonic mind.

In any event, Jung himself engaged in a form of fantasy thinking in his dangerous self-experimentation with what he came to refer to as active imagination. However, he seems to have sensed just how dangerous his practice of active imagination was. Consequently, he developed elaborate ways to process the unconscious contents that his practice of active imagination called up in his psyche. First, Jung wrote out elaborate records of his experiences of the unconscious contents in his Black Books. Subsequently, Jung made works of art and drawings of the unconscious contents in his Red Book.

In 2009, W. W. Norton and Company published Jung’s Red Book: Liber Novus (Latin for “New Book”), edited by Sona Shamdasani, translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani as an oversized art book.

In 2020, W. W. Norton and Company published the seven-volume set of Jung’s Black Books: 1913-1932: Notebooks of Transformation, edited by Sonu Shamdasani, translated by Martin Liebscher, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani.

I would point out here that the editor has designated these records by Jung as “Notebooks of Transformation.” The key word “Transformation” links Jung’s writings in these “Notebooks” to the term “Transformation in the title of his 1912 key work that he re-titled in 1952 as Symbols of Transformation, when he substantially revised his 1912 key work. The editor notes that Jung made these written records between 1913 and 1932. Because Jung published his key work about “Transformation” in 1912, the dating of the records in these “Notebooks” shows that Jung did not start making these written records of his own personal experiences of unconscious contents in his psyche until after he had published his key work about “Transformation” in 1912.

Jung’s 1912 key work in German Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido was published in the authorized English translation by the American psychiatrist Beatrice M. Hinkle of Cornell University in 1916 as Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido: A Contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought.

Now, I want to say a couple of things here. First, when you have the sense that you are or have recently been experiencing unconscious contents in your psyche, you should follow Jung’s example and process the unconscious contents by writing out a record of your experiences of the unconscious contents. Why? Because unconscious contents surfacing in your psyche can cause you to have a psychotic break.

Yes, over a period of about ten weeks in the fall of 2024, ending a few days before the election on November 5, 2024, I felt mildly euphoric. Yes, I eventually interpreted the mild euphoria that I was experiencing as representing unconscious contents in my psyche, and so I began writing about my experiences of unconscious contents as a way to process the unconscious contents in my psyche. You see, I wrote about my experiences of unconscious contents both in private email message addressed to certain persons and in public articles that I published online – as two ways of processing my experiences of unconscious contents and mild euphoria.

In 20/20 hindsight today, I would liken my writing private email messages to certain persons to Jung’s processing his experiences of unconscious contents in my psyche by writing about them in his Black Books. I would also liken my other way of processing my experiences of unconscious contents in my psyche by writing articles for online publication to Jung’s further processing of his experiences of unconscious contents in my psyche through making works of art and drawings in his Red Book.

The online publications that I wrote as a way of process that unconscious contents that I was experiencing in my psyche when I felt mildly euphoric for about ten weeks include my OEN articles “Young Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman” (dated September 3, 2024) and “Thomas J. Farrell’s Encore on Young Lynda carters as Wonder woman” (dated September 30, 2024).

Indeed, I see the main body of the present essay (not counting the “Appendix” at the end of this essay) as another article I have written for online publication in which I am once again further processing my ten-week-long experience of unconscious contents in my psyche. Indeed, the present essay, including the earlier material in the “Appendix,” strikes me as a grand tour de force in which I use what Jung refers to as fantasy thinking involving associative thinking.

Ah, but I have noted above that the editor has titled the 2020 seven-volume set of Jung’s Black Books: 1913-1932: Notebooks of Transformation, and I have also noted above the term “Transformation” links these writings by Jung with his key 1912 book in German titled Transformations and Symbolisms of Libido about “Transformations” of libido in the psyche, which 1912 work that Jung substantially revised and re-titled in 1952 as Symbols of Transformation (no “s”). In both the 1912 work and the 1952 work, Jung has a chapter of fantasy thinking involving images and associative thinking versus directed thinking involving logic.

Speaking of logic, by what logic did Jung decide to drop the “s” from the term “Transformations” and the two important terms “Symbolisms” and “Libido” in the title of his 1912 book in German, Transformations and Symbolisms of Libido, in his extensively revised and re-titled 1952 book Symbols of Transformation? OK. I get that Jung dropped the plural term “Symbolisms” in favor of the shorter plural term “Symbols.” But why did he drop the important term “Libido” from the title of his substantially revised 1952 book?

On another theme, did the Jungian psychoanalyst Erich Neumann’s grand synthesis of Jung’s work in his 1949 book in German The Origins and History of Consciousness, translated by R. F. C. Hull (1954), decisively influence Jung’s 1952 extensive revision of his 1912 book Transformations and Symbolisms of Libido, which 1952 extensive revision he re-titled Symbolisms of Transformation?

Now, in Ong’s 1971 book Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology: Studies in the interaction of Expression and Culture, he succinctly summarizes the eight stages of consciousness that Erich Neumann delineates in his 1949 book The Origins and History of Consciousness as follows:

“The stages of psychic development as treated by Neumann are successively (1) the infantile undifferentiated self-contained whole symbolized by the uroboros (tail-eater), the serpent with its tail in its mouth, as well as by other circular or global mythological figures [including Nietzsche’s imagery about the eternal return?], (2) the Great Mother (the impersonal womb from which each human infant, male or female, comes, the impersonal femininity which may swallow him [or her] up again), (3) the separation of the world parents (the principle of opposites, differentiation, possibility of change, (4) the birth of the hero (rise of masculinity and of the personalized ego) with its sequels in (5) the slaying of the mother (fight with the dragon: victory over primal creative but consuming femininity, chthonic forces), and (6) the slaying of the father (symbol of thwarting obstruction of individual achievement, [thwarting] what is new), (7) the freeing of the captive (liberation of the ego from endogamous [i.e., “married” within one’s psyche] kinship libido and the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness), and finally (8) the transformation (new unity in self-conscious individualization, higher masculinity, expressed primordially in the Osiris myth but today entering new phases with heightened individualism [such as Nietzsche’s overman] – or, more properly, personalism – of modern man [sic])” (Ong, 1971, pp. 10-11).

Ong also sums up Neumann’s Jungian account of the stages of consciousness in his (Ong’s) book Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness (1981, pp. 18-19; but also see the “Index” for further references to Neumann [p. 228]), the published version of Ong’s 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University.

As you can see, Ong here sums up Neumann’s account of stage (7) as “the freeing of the captive (liberation of the ego from endogamous kinship libido and the emergence of the higher femininity, with woman now as person, anima-sister, related positively to ego consciousness)” (Ong, 1971, p. 11).

So in Neumann’s synthesis of Jung’s pioneering thought, libido is, figuratively speaking, wedded within the psyche to the individual person’s feminine image in his or her psyche. Consequently, when the individual person undergoes the psychological development of his or her personal consciousness in his or her psyche in stage (7), he or she experiences in his or her psyche the freeing of his or her ego-consciousness from endogamous kinship libido in his or her psyche.

The implication is that this freeing of ego-consciousness from endogamous kinship libido involves kinship libido in the individual person’s psyche that is, figuratively speaking, wed to the feminine image in the individual person’s psyche.

In terms of the Jungian psychological theorist Robert Moore’s theory of the eight archetypes of maturity and their accompanying sixteen “shadow” forms, the freeing of ego-consciousness from endogamous kinship libido involving the feminine image frees the person to access not only the optimal and positive form of the feminine Lover archetype of maturity in his or her psyche, but also the optimal and positive forms of the Queen archetype of maturity in his or her psyche, and the optimal and positive form of the feminine Warrior/Knight archetype of maturity in his or her psyche, and the optimal and positive form of the feminine Magician/Shaman archetype of maturity in his or her psyche.

Similarly, when the individual person experiences stage (8) in Neumann’s Jungian account of the eight stages of consciousness, he or she thereby experiences the optimal and positive forms of the four masculine archetypes of maturity in his or her psyche.

In any event, am I now implying that my ten-week-long experience of mild euphoria and of unconscious contents in my psyche in the fall of 2024, in my 80th year of life, indicates that I am presently experiencing some kind of transformation in my psyche and in my psychological make up? Yes, I am implying exactly this.

To be more precise about the transformation that I am still currently undergoing, I want to draw on the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore’s theory of the eight archetypes of maturity and their accompanying sixteen “shadow” forms. At eh present time, I am still undergoing the transformation in my psyche in which I am learning how to access the optimal and positive form of the feminine Lover archetype in my psyche.

Next, I also want to point out here that there is a family resemblance, so to speak, between what Jung came to refer to as active imagination, on the one hand, and, on the other, Ignatian meditation following the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola in as much as both meditative processes involve the imagination. No, the two practices are not identical. I’d refer to Jung’s active imagination as more freewheeling fantasy thinking. By contrast, I would characterize Ignatian meditation following the Spiritual Exercises as guided imagistic meditation involving scripture passages and the application of the five senses one by one to the scripture passage in question.

Joan Chodorow gathered Jung scattered passages about active imagination together in the book Jung on Active Imagination (1997).

Now, the life of the French Renaissance logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572) overlaps with the life of the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuit order (known formally as the Society of Jesus) and the author of the famous Spiritual Exercises. Father Ong was a Jesuit, and Pope Francis is the first Jesuit pope.

Now, the Second Vatican Council in the Roman Catholic Church ordered all religious orders to revisit their original charisms (i.e., gifts). When Jesuits revisited their original charisms, they discovered that St. Ignatius Loyola had given people directed retreats following his famous Spiritual Exercises. But over the subsequent centuries, Jesuits had developed the custom of giving preached retreats. As part of Walter Ong’s lengthy Jesuit formation, and as part of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s lengthy Jesuit formation, each man twice made a 30-day preached retreat in silence (except for the daily conferences retreat director) following the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola.

In our Western literary tradition, the most famous literary representation of a preached Jesuit retreat can be found in James Joyce’s famous novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).

When I was in the Jesuits (1979-1987), I made a 30-day directed retreat in the novitiate in silence (except for the daily conferences with the retreat director) following the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola.

As you may have surmised by now, I see the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965 in the Roman Catholic Church are embodying and manifesting what Ong refers to as our contemporary secondary oral culture. I see the Council of Trent (1545-1563) in the Roman Catholic Church as embodying and manifesting the print culture that emerged in our Western cultural history after the Gutenberg printing press emerged in Europe in the mid-1450s. Yes, the years of the Council or Trent (1545-1563) overlap with the lives of Peter Ramus (1515-1572) and St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556).

For a history of the Council of Trent, see the American Jesuit church historian John W. O’Malley’s Trent: What Happened at the Council (2013).

For a history of the Second Vatican council, see O’Malley’s What Happened at Vatican II (2008).

For a history of the early Jesuits, see O’Malley’s The First Jesuits (1993).

Taking various hints from Ong, I have written about our contemporary secondary oral culture in my essay “Secondary Orality and Consciousness Today” in the well-organized anthology Media, consciousness, and culture: Explorations of Walter Ong’s Thought, edited by Bruce E. Gronbeck, Thomas j. Farrell, and Paul A. Soukup (1991, pp. 194-209).

Now, in preparation for my intensive consultation with him as a psychotherapist in July 2006 in his home office in Chicago, the late Jungian psychotherapist and psychological theorist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary had me write out memories of my early childhood (up to about the age of 12). Then, as further homework for me to complete in my dorm room at the University of Chicago when I was in Chicago for consultation with him in his home office, Robert Moore had me complete, to the best of my ability, an exercise regarding each of my childhood memories, and then discuss my completed exercises with him in his home office. As it turned out, I was not especially adept at completing the exercise for each of my childhood memories – and Robert Moore occasionally suggested alternative ways to complete the exercise regarding certain of my childhood memories.

As it turns out, Pope Francis’ new 2025 300-page book Hope: The Autobiography features certain memories of his childhood. Unfortunately, Pope Francis does not complete the fourfold exercise for each of his childhood memories that Robert Moore had me complete for each of my childhood memories in July 2006.

The instructions were fourfold. For each of my childhood memories, I was to write out four complete sentences, each of which was to begin with the following words: (1) I am . . . ; (2) Other people are . . . ; (3) The world is a place where . . . ; (4) In order to have a place in the world, I must . . .

Now, apart from how I have completed (4) “In order to have a place in the world” with respect to any of my childhood memories, I would now say that in order to have a place if the world today, I have published more than 650 OEN articles over the years – including an early version of the present essay.

Now, Robert Moore did not claim to have originated this fourfold exercise. Rather, he acknowledged that he had borrowed the instructions for this fourfold exercise from Adlerian dream interpretation.

In any event, I have written about this fourfold way of interpreting memories in my widely read OEN article “Childhood Memories: A Fourfold Heuristic Exercises [sic]” (dated October 31, 2021).

For my own efforts to complete the four parts of this exercise regarding each of my childhood memories, see the “Appendix” at the end of the present essay.

End of disclosure.

In any event, the Rome-based journalist Elisabeth Povoledo reported in The New York Times (dated January 13, 2025) that Pope Francis’ new book Hope: The Autobiography was released on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, in 18 languages: “Pope Francis’ Autobiography, Hope, arrives in bookstores: The book, which was six years in the making, vividly recreates Francis’ childhood in Buenos Aires but offers few new insights into his papacy.”

In Elisabeth Povoledo’s NYT article, she corrects the erroneous claim that Pope Francis’ new 2025 300-page book titled Hope: The Autobiography “is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope” – as the English-language publisher’s website claims.

Elisabeth Povoledo says that the claim that Pope Francis’ book “is the first autobiography in history ever to be published by a Pope” “is not technically true. That honor belongs to Pope Pius II’s 15th Century chronicles, The Commentaries, a 13-book account of his life that is considered a seminal text in Renaissance humanism.

“Francis is also not the first pope to share his story. As a cardinal, Josephy Ratzinger wrote an autobiography which was published in 1997, eight years before he became Pope Benedict XVI, and both he and his predecessor, [Pope] John-Paul II, coauthored books with journalists that were personal reflections and not official papal documents.”

Now, the English-language publisher of Pope Francis’ new 2025 300-page book is Random House. At the Random House website, we are also told that “Pope Francis originally intended this exceptional book to appear only after his death, but the needs of our times [e.g., Trump’s election to a second term as president of the United States?] and the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope have moved him to make this precious available now.”

Now, Pope Francis is undoubtedly convinced that people need hope. Hope is a central theme of his 2022 book A Gift of Joy and Hope, translated from the Italian by Oonagh Stransky (orig. Italian ed., 2020). In addition, hope is an essential ingredient in Pope Francis’ 2020 book, in conversation with Austen Ivereigh, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future.

Now, the Freudian psychoanalyst and psychological theorist Erik H. Erikson (1902-1994) has written about the eight stages of psycho-sexual development in his summative book The Life Cycle Completed: A Review (1982). In it, Erikson links hope with stage one of the eight stages of psycho-sexual development (pp. 32-33), the stage that involves the psycho-social crisis of Basic Trust versus Basic Mistrust.

Now, Pope Francis has previously published a book, with Fabio Marchese Ragona, about his life in Italian and translated into English as Life: My Story Through History, translated by Aubrey Botsford (2024).

In addition, Pope Francis cooperated with the lay English author Austen Ivereigh to help him produce Ivereigh’s two big biographies of him: (1) The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope (2014); and (2) Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church (2019).

Pope Francis also cooperated with the lay Italian author Massimo Borghesi to help him produce his fine book The Mind of Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s Intellectual Journey, translated by Barry Hudock (2018; orig. Italian ed., 2017).

Now, I will leave it up to Austen Ivereigh and others to determine exactly what points about Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s life before he was elected Pope Francis in March 2013 are revealed for the first time in his new 2025 book Hope: The Autobiography, translated by Richard Dixon with Carlo Musso.

In the present essay, I will undertake to tell you some of the highlights you can find in the pope’s new 2025 300-page illustrated book.

The most efficient way for me to provide you with a quick overview of and introduction to Pope Francis’ new 2025 book Hope: The Autobiography is to tell you its contents:

Half-Title Page (p. i).

Title Page (p. iii).

Copyright page (p. iv).

Epigraph Page (p. v).

“Contents” (pp. vii-viii).

“Introduction: All Is Born to Blossom” (p. ix).

Half-Title Page (p. 1).

“Prologue” (pp. 3-6).

Chapter 1: “May My Tongue Stick to My Palate” (pp. 7-14).

Chapter 2: “Too Long Do I Live Among Those Who Hate Peace” (pp. 15-31).

Chapter 3: “The Gifts of a Healthy Restlessness” (pp. 32-41).

Chapter 4: “Almost at the End of the Earth” (pp. 42-52).

Chapter 5: “The More, the Merrier” (pp. 53-67).

Chapter 6: “Like a Stretched Cord” (pp. 68-77).

Chapter 7: “Playing Over the Whole of His Earth” (pp. 78-85).

Chapter 8: “Life and the Art of Encounter” (pp. 86-93).

Chapter 9: “The Day Went Fast as an Arrow” (pp. 94-101).

Chapter 10: “They Recognized Each Other from Afar” (pp. 102-108).

Chapter 11: “Like the Branch of the Almond Tree” (pp. 109-115).

Chapter 12: “They Feed upon My People as They Feed upon Bread” (pp. 116-130).

Chapter 13: “No One Can Save Themselves Alone” (pp. 131-141).

Chapter 14: “Resounding with the Deepest Vibrations” (pp. 142-152).

Chapter 15: “The Only Way to Become Fully Human” (pp. 153-163).

Chapter 16: “Like a Child in Its Mother’s Arms” (pp. 164-181).

Chapter 17: “That You May Remember and Be Ashamed” 9pp. 182-195).

Chapter 18: “All Out and All In” (pp. 196-207).

Chapter 19: “Walking through Valleys of the Shadow of Death” (pp. 208-219).

Chapter 20: “Your Rod and Your Staff. They Comfort Me” (pp. 220-233).

Chapter 21: “The Scandal of Peace” (pp. 234-246).

Chapter 22: “Hand in Hand with a Steadfast Child” (pp. 247-257).

Chapter 23: “In the Image of a God Who Smiles” (pp. 258-267).

Chapter 24: “For the Best Days Are Still to Come” (pp. 268-284).

Chapter 25: “I Am Just One Step” (pp. 285-292).

“A Brief Note by the Co-Author” (pp. 293-294).

“Sources” (pp. 295-297).

“Text Credits” (pp. 299-300).

“Photograph Credits” (pp, 301-302).

“About the Author” (p. 303).

Now, because Pope Francis has frequently extolled the merits of encounter and dialogue, I was pleased to see him devote Chapter 8 to discussing his view of “Life and the Art of Encounter.”

In Pope Francis’ Chapter 12: “They Feed upon My People as They Feed upon Bread,” I came upon the most extraordinary sentence in the book about Pope Francis’ family: “I came from a family who were radical” (p. 118).

Now, in my various publications about Ong’s thought over the years, I have called attention to his famous contrast of oral-aural versus visual sense analogs for different ways of cognitive processing of sensory data. Consequently, I was generally pleased to see Pope Francis discuss oral-aural imagery in Chapter 14: “Resounding with the Deepest Vibrations.” In addition, because I have Robert Moore’s account of the eight archetypes of maturity and their sixteen accompanying “shadow” forms in the collective unconscious in the human psyche, I was pleased to see that Pope Francis understands that we should be attentive to “the Deepest vibrations” in our psyches. In Ignatian spirituality, being attentive to “the Deepest Vibrations” in one psyche involves discernment of spirits.

In Pope Francis’ Chapter 15, he sets for his vision of “The Only Way to Become Fully Human.” As I have indicated in my OEN article “Robert Moore on Optimal Human Psychological Development” (dated September 17, 2024), I find Robert Moore’s vision of becoming fully human preferable to the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings regarding individual personal moral development – and to Pope Francis’ vision of becoming fully human in Chapter 15 of his new 2025 300-page book Hope: The Autobiography.

In Pope Francis’ Chapter 17: “That You May Remember and Be Ashamed,” I came upon the most extraordinary sentence about Pope Francis himself: “If I consider what is the greatest gift that I desire from the Lord and have experienced, it is the gift of shame” (p. 182).

The American recovering alcoholic and self-help guru John Bradshaw (1933-2016) has written a profoundly insightful book titled Healing the Shame That Binds You, expanded and updated second edition (Health Communications, 2005; orig. ed., 1987).

I have written about john Bradshaw’s profoundly insightful book in my recent 6,080-word OEN article “In Praise of John Bradshaw’s Book Healing the Shame That Binds You” (dated January 19, 2025).

Now, overall, the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis’ new 2025 300-page book Hope: The Autobiography is accessible. Unfortunately, and sadly, but not surprisingly, there is nothing in it that suggests that the doctrinally conservative Pope Francis has any reservations about the Roman Catholic Church’s moral teachings regarding individual personal moral development that I find so lacking – as I have indicated in my OEN article “Robert Moore on Optimal Human Psychological Development” (dated September 17, 2024).

Appendix: Thomas J. Farrell’s Childhood Memories (Requested by Dr. Robert L. Moore in June 2006, for Consultation in July 2006; Updated September 5, 2010 and July 10, 2014; Conclusion Added on October 14, 2024.)

I had contacted Dr. Moore about an intensive weekend consultation about my continuing complicated grief over the death of Father Ong in August 2003. In preparation for my intensive weekend consultation with Dr. Moore in July 2006, I compiled in June 2006 a list of early memories, as he had requested. When I met with him in his home office in Chicago in July 2006, he asked me to complete an exercise for each memory. For each of my childhood memories, I was supposed to complete the following statements about each of them:

(A) I am . . .

(B) Other people are . . .

(C) The world is a place where . . .

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must . . .

After each memory below, I have entered the responses that I wrote out in Chicago in July 2006. Then on September 5, 2010, I added some further memories from my childhood, but I did not do the exercise with each of them.

(1) I was born on March 17, 1944, in Ossining, New York. My mother was living with my father’s family in Ossining. My father was in the Army and had been shipped overseas to England. He was in the area of Dover when I was born. When he came home from World War II, I have a vague but distinctive memory of meeting him in the living room of my grandfather’s home. I assume that my mother was also present, but I have no memory of anybody else being present at the time. I don’t recall anything else happening, nor do I have any feeling about the event.

(1A) I’ve heard the story surrounding this meeting so many times that it seems real, but I do not have any real memory of the following details. As the story goes, my mother asked me where my Daddy was. He was standing right in front of me, but I went and got his picture and brought it over to her and my father.

(A) I am not quick to make new connections.

(B) Other people are prompting me to make new connections.

(C) The world is a place where you need to make new connections.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I need to make new connections from time to time.

(2; updated July 10, 2014 with information from my three-years-younger sister about the year our family had moved from NY to KCK: 1948) I have a distinct memory of my father being furious with me for painting the fire hydrant in front of my grandfather’s house. I was in front of my grandfather’s house, and I was painting the fire hydrant when my father saw me and stopped me. He was just furious. But I have no particular feeling in connection with this oft-told story. I don’t know exactly how old I was at the time, but I had to have been under four or younger, because as I recall I was four when we moved from Ossining in 1948 to Kansas City, Kansas.

(2A; updated July 10, 2014) Here’s the story I’ve heard so many times that it seems real. An old gentleman down at the end of the long block named Pop Wheeler gave me an open can of red paint and a paint brush from his workshop. I don’t know why. In any event, I walked back up the street toward my grandfather’s house painting a red line across fences in front of houses. When I got in front of my grandfather’s house, I started painting the yellow fire hydrant red. That’s when my father saw me and stopped me. My mother told this story often because she thought it was humorous that my father became so infuriated over this. However, I don’t think that my father directed his blow-up to the fire hydrant – or toward the sky. I think he directed his fury toward me. Because my mother told the story as a humorous story, I suspect that at the time she did nothing to console me and help me understand how humorous my father’s fury was to her. I seriously doubt that I found his blow-up humorous.

(A) I am the object of my father’s fury. (Robert Moore: I am provocatively creative.)

(A) I am still that little boy startled and scared by my father’s fury (July 22, 2012)

(B) Other people are occasionally furious with me.

(C) The world is a place where people occasionally become furious with me.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I’d better avoid making people furious, or else learn how to withstand their fury.

(3) I have a vague memory about feeling nervous and reluctant to go the kindergarten in Kansas City, Kansas. My mother was with me at the time I felt this, and she encouraged me to go. I guess I did go, but I don’t remember that part. I have no particular feeling about this memory.

(A) I am cautious about undertaking new ventures.

(B) Other people are encouraging me to undertake new ventures.

(C) The world is a place where new ventures must be undertaken from time to time.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must undertake new ventures from time to time.

(4; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I continued to wet my bed at night well beyond the age when most children no longer do this. As a result, my parents put a rubber sheet on my bed, with the regular sheet on top of it. When I discussed this memory with a clinical psychologist in Duluth in the late 1980s, he suggested that such bed-wetting was usually the result of fear. Updated 6/9/2012: Steve Hodges and Suzanne Schlosberg published the article titled “The Real Reason Your Kid Wets the Bed” online in Slate Magazine on March 6, 2012. The authors draw on recent research to suggest that constipation can lead to bed wetting.

(5; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my parents attended a teacher-parent conference one evening. After they returned home, my mother used her very loud voice to report angrily to me that my teacher had told them that I was not working up to my ability in school.

(6) I remember my father helping me with math on a number of occasions. We sat at the kitchen table, and he drew on paper and explained things to me. I have no particular feeling in connection with this memory.

(A) I am stumped at times and need personal tutoring in learning something. (Robert Moore: I am open to guidance from others. Robert Moore: I am recipient on the part of people who would instruct me.)

(B) Other people are needed at times to tutor me and assist me in learning something. (Robert Moore: Other people are willing to help me.)

(C) The world is a place where I at times need to be tutored about things. (Robert Moore: The world has complex problems.)

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must be tutored at times. (Robert Moore: In order to have a place in the world, I must engage in problem-solving with others.)

(7) I also remember my father reading parts of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer aloud to me as we sat side by side on the couch in the living room. I have no particular feeling in connection with this memory.

(A) I am inclined to need personal attention and assistance in order to learn something.

(B) Other people are needed to help assist me in learning.

(C) The world is a place where I may be called upon to learn things with the assistance of others.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must learn things with the assistance of others.

(8; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I remember being disappointed about my grades in school. Because the teacher arranged the students in rank-ordered seating in the classroom, it was abundantly clear to me that two near neighbors (a boy my age and a girl my age) were usually the top two students in the class, whereas I was in the bottom half. My father tried to console me by suggesting that our two near neighbors were just teacher’s pets.

(9; added 9/5/2010) when we lived on Orville Avenue, I occasionally pestered my father into doing one thing or another with me – for example, taking my horse-back riding, taking my fishing, playing catch with me. However, it was usually obvious even to a child that he was not enjoying himself.

(10; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my father planted and took care of a small vegetable garden (mostly tomato plants) by himself. He did not try to enlist my help in pulling weeds or anything else in connection with the vegetables that he had planted.

(11; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my father only rarely spoke of his experience in battle in World War II. However, when he did speak briefly, he made it clear that he had been disgusted by much of what he had seen in the war.

(12; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my mother more than once used her very loud voice to admonish me: “Don’t argue with your mother!” Today I take my attempt to argue with her as a sign that I was angry with her. As a result, I today understand loud and angry admonishment as shaming me for my anger (to use John Bradshaw’s terminology).

(13; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my mother once used her very loud voice to admonish me in no uncertain terms: “They are your sisters, and you should take care of them.” I do not remember what I had done, or what I may not have done, to draw down this admonishment. However, her way of admonishing me about my sisters did not endear my sisters to me.

(14; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my three-years-younger sister and I took tap-dance lessons from a woman who gave dancing lessons in the basement of her home. To this day, my three-years-younger sister says that she enjoyed those lessons. But I did not enjoy them; as a result, I did not practice tap dancing, and I was never very good at it.

(15; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I took some kind of ballroom-dancing lessons. But I was never very good at dancing.

(16; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I enjoyed playing basketball in the school play yard, even though I was never very good at basketball. I even enjoyed going over to the school yard and practicing by myself at times.

(17; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I took swimming lessons at the Y in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. Around that time, there had been an airplane crash in downtown KCK, and I remember seeing the wreckage from that crash one day.

(18; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my mother often made fun of the appearance of my father’s legs and generalized to the effect that men have funny-looking legs. Her mockery added to my excruciating self-consciousness, and for years I refused to wear shorts of any kind.

(19; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my father’s older brother (my uncle), his wife (my aunt), and their son drove from Ossining, New York, to KCK to visit us. That year, there was a big flood in the KC area. I remember viewing the flood during their visit.

(20; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, one of my godfather’s daughters and her husband drove Ossining to KCK to visit us on their way west (to California, if I remember correctly). My father got the fellow to help him paint the house.

(21; added 9/5/2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my father often brought home discarded wooden magazine display cases because he wanted to salvage the lumber from them. He often had me remove the nails from the lumber. After he had shown me what he wanted me to do and how to do it, he had me do this work by myself; he was not present when I did it, so I was not working alongside him under his observation and supervision.

(22) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my father told me once to paint part of the front porch. He was not going to be present to watch me and supervise my work. When he came home and inspected my work, he exploded in an explosion of monumental anger over what I had done. My mother was also present, and she said to him, “Jimmy, he’s only a child.” I have no particular feeling in connection with this memory.

(A) I usually am eager to please others by doing things they ask me to do.

(A) I am still that young child scared by my father’s furious displeasure (July 22, 2012).

(B) Other people are inclined to have their own expectations about things I do.

(C) The world is a place where people can get furious with you if you do not happen to meet their expectations.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must do my best at the task at hand, but expect that some people may be dissatisfied with my effort.

23; added 9/5/2010; updated July 10, 2014) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my mother often summoned to come and help her with something she was doing: “Tommy, come and help me.” She was clearly frustrated and exasperated and angry. Her anger was not directed at me. But she expected me not to be afraid of her anger but to remain calm myself and help her.  She often had me help her prepare the evening meal by stirring various things that were cooking on the stove and by mashing the potatoes when they had been fully cooked.

(24 and 25) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I remember playing over at the neighbors. Their son was my age; another son was a year older, and a third son was three years younger than I was.

(24) On one occasion the second son and I were climbing in a tree in their back yard, a tree in which there was a “tree house” platform. We were venturing out from the platform for some reason, and his mother came out and yelled at us and told us to come down from the tree. We came down from the tree, as she had told us to. Nothing else happened, but we were not allowed to go back up into that tree that day. I have no particular feeling about this memory.

(A) I am occasionally emboldened to take unwise risks. (Robert Moore: I enjoy going out on limbs. I am not satisfied to stay on the already established platform.)

(B) Other people are needed at times to warn me off from unwise risks.

(C) The world is a place where unwise risks should be avoided.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must avoid unwise risks.

(25) On another occasion we were playing in front of the neighbor’s home when the oldest son shot a rock from a sling shot and hit me in the head, near my eye, as I recall, but I can’t at this remove of time say which eye. His mother saw what had happened and came out of the house and yelled at her oldest son and hugged me. I was stunned by the impact of the rock, but it caused no bleeding. I have no particular feeling in connection with this memory.

(A) I am vulnerable; I can be hurt.

(B) Other people are needed to recognize when I’ve been hurt and console me.

(C) The world is a place where I can be hurt unexpectedly. (Robert Moore: The world is a place where people aim missiles at you.)

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must acknowledge when I’ve been hurt, so that others can support me. (Robert Moore: In order to have a place in the world, I must take necessary risks.)

(26) After my youngest sister was born, I remember that my mother told me to feed her. My youngest sister was in a high chair, and she was in no mood to eat anything. My mother finally told me to stop trying to feed her. I have no particular feeling in connection with this memory.

(A) I am inclined to carry out tasks I’ve been asked to do.

(B) Other people are likely to ask me at times to carry out certain tasks.

(C) The world is a place where I may be asked to carry out demanding tasks that I may not be able to fulfill.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must attempt to carry out certain tasks, even when they are frustrating to carry out.

(27) On a number of other occasions after my youngest sister was born, my mother would get frustrated with something while she was preparing the evening meal. She would usually scream and exclaim something, because some medical doctor had once told her not to hold her anger in. I remember going into the kitchen to assist her by stirring the pots on the stove and/or mashing the potatoes and the like. I have no particular feelings in connection with these memories.

(A) I am inclined to help people when they call upon me for assistance.

(B) Other people are inclined to call out for assistance when they are frustrated.

(C) The world is a place where people at times get frustrated and call out for assistance.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must be prepared to assist people when they call out for assistance.

(28) When we lived on Orville Avenue, my mother told me rather abruptly one day that my maternal grandmother had committed suicide. My mother said that she was telling me this because she did not want me to be upset if I heard someone in the neighbor say this. I greeted this revelation with silence. I do not have any particular feeling in connection with this memory.

(A) I am shocked and dumfounded into silence by some revelations.

(A) I am not able to mourn somebody’s death in a healthy way (July 22, 2012)

(B) Other people are likely to make revelations at times that will surprise me and leave me in silence.

(C) The world is a place where shocking things happen occasionally.

(D) In order to have a place in the world, I must expect to hear shocking news occasionally.

(29; added September 5, 2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I had a used bicycle. It was stolen. My father said that I should learn a lesson from its being stolen. However, I had not ever received any instructions from him or my mother about best where to keep it.

(30; added September 5, 2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I served as an altar boy. When there were funeral Masses, I was often selected by the Monsignor to be the one altar boy to accompany him to the cemetery for the ceremony there, which meant that I was excused to be late getting back to school that day.

(31; added September 5, 2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I was selected at times by teachers to help with various things at school such as loading the film on the movie projector and helping to set up chairs in the auditorium in the basement of the school.

(32; added September 5, 2010) When we lived on Orville Avenue, I built and painted a portable staircase that was used in certain ceremonies in the church for several years.

CONCLUSION (recorded on October 14, 2024): I have come to the conclusion that the early childhood traumas that I experienced involving my mother and my father occurred before I was four years old — and I do not remember any of those early childhood traumas. But I have no doubt that those early childhood traumas still govern much of my current behavior.

In addition, I have concluded that most of my memories of events in my life up to the age of 12 are not especially important – even though I did find the exercise that Robert Moore taught me informative.

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Ong, W. J. (1971). Rhetoric, romance, and technology: Studies in the interaction of expression and culture. Cornell University Press.

Ong, W. J. (1981). Fighting for life: Contest, sexuality [gender], and consciousness. Cornell University Press.

Ong, W. J. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. Methuen.

PenguinRandomHouse. (2025). Website URL: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/book/786139/hope-by-pope-francis/

Povoleda, E. (2025, January 6). Pope names nun to head a Vatican department, a first for a woman: Sister Simona Brambilla was appointed as the prefect of a Vatican office that oversees religious orders, but she may be alone a the top. The New York Times URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/06/world/europe/pope-sister-simona-brambilla-vatican-woman.html?searchResultPosition=8

Povoleda, E. (2025.January 14). Pope Francis’ Autobiography, Hope, arrives in bookstores: The book, which was six years in the making, vividly recreates Francis’ childhood in Buenos Aires but offers few new insights into his papacy. The New York Times URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/world/europe/pope-francis-autobiography.html

Rowlands, A. (2021). Towards a politics of communion: Catholic social teaching in dark times. T&T Clark.

Walsh, T. M. (2011). Walter J. Ong, S.J.: A bibliography 1929-2006. Language, culture, and identity: The legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J. (pp. 185-245; S. van den Berg and T. M. Walsh, Eds.). Hampton Press).