VATICAN CITY — Notes that the late Pope Francis kept for more than three decades will be published on Nov. 24 in a book by one of his closest collaborators, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s publishing house announced on Monday, Oct. 5.
The Libreria Editrice Vaticana (LEV) said the book will come out at the same time in five languages and be distributed in 94 countries. It covers entries that Jorge Mario Bergoglio wrote between Dec. 20, 1992, and Aug. 18, 2024. That span runs from his first months as an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires to less than a year before his death.
Francis led the Catholic Church from March 13, 2013, until he died on April 21, 2025. Vatican News, reporting the announcement, described the book as a text “of exceptional value and importance” for understanding the Jesuit pope.
Title, Author and Publishers
The Italian edition is titled Il Diario personale di Papa Francesco. In English it will be The Private Diary of Pope Francis, published in North America by Image, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in partnership with LEV. Some early wire reports carried the title as “The Spiritual Diary of Pope Francis,” but the publishers’ own announcements use “Private Diary.”
The book is credited to Fernández. According to Vatican News, it presents the notes and adds the cardinal’s commentary, and Penguin Random House lists him as the author. Fernández, an Argentine theologian, heads the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office responsible for safeguarding Catholic doctrine. Francis brought him to Rome for that post in July 2023, Argentine daily La Nación noted.
LEV will publish the Italian edition. Penguin Random House will handle Spanish, English, and Portuguese, and Editions Albin Michel will publish in French. Agence France-Presse reported that the book runs 144 pages and that the French edition will reach stores on Nov. 25.
Publishers Promise a Look Inside
Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, said in the LEV announcement that the book would let readers know more about the Argentine pope’s inner life.
“Through his own words, readers will gain a deeper understanding of Pope Francis during some of the most important periods of his spiritual life,” said Campbell Wharton, senior vice president and publisher of Penguin Random House Christian.
Albin Michel president Gilles Haeri told AFP the work was “very personal” and in the same vein as Hope, the autobiography Francis released in January 2025, the first published by a sitting pope.
A Surprise in Rome
La Nación’s Rome correspondent, Elisabetta Piqué, reported that the announcement caught much of the Vatican off guard because almost no one knew the diary existed.
She also recalled an exchange in El Sucesor, a 2024 book-length interview with Spanish journalist Javier Martínez Brocal. Asked whether he would order his papers burned after his death, as St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI had, Francis said he was already taking care of that himself. Piqué suggested that the notes now being published are likely writings Francis wanted made public.
EWTN News compared the project to Journal of a Soul, the spiritual diary of St. John XXIII that was published after his death in 1963.
Why It Matters
Francis gave dozens of interviews and wrote widely during his papacy. The diary offers a view of a private record that, by La Nación’s account, few in the Vatican knew he kept. The diary also spans years that remain sensitive in Argentina, including his time as archbishop of Buenos Aires and his elevation to cardinal in 2001, as La Nación pointed out.
For Filipino Catholics, Francis remains a familiar figure. He visited the Philippines from Jan. 15 to 19, 2015, saying Mass in Tacloban and Palo, Leyte, after Super Typhoon Yolanda, and at Rizal Park in Manila, according to the Vatican’s record of the trip.
What to Watch
- LEV will present the book to international publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which runs from Oct. 7 to 11.
- The release comes after Pope Leo XIV’s scheduled trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru from Nov. 6 to 17, La Nación reported.
- Whether the publishers release excerpts before Nov. 24, and how much of the book is Francis’ own text versus the cardinal’s commentary.
- We found no announcement on Philippine availability or local pricing as of publication.
