Discovering Pope Frances: The Roots of Jorge Mario Bergoglio's Thinking

2020 Association of Catholic Publishers third place award in theology

2020 Catholic Press Association third place award in Pope Francis books

The dangerous tendency to reduce theological positions to political ones has always fueled divisions in the Church, and it plagues debates surrounding Pope Francis's teaching today. This collection of essays was born of a landmark international symposium designed to promote theological understanding by contextualizing the thought of Pope Francis—from his understanding of history to his theology of mission—within important theological conversations rarely heard in the US Catholic Church. Its contributors demonstrate decisively that Pope Francis's magisterium is the fruit of a profound and distinctive, yet deeply Catholic, intellectual engagement with the theological and ecclesial traditions of the Church.

Contributors include: Austen Ivereigh, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Rodrigo Guerra López, Bishop Robert Barron, Massimo Borghesi, Susan K. Wood, SCL, Rocco Buttiglione, Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour, Peter J. Casarella, Brian Y. Lee, Thomas L. Knoebel

Brian Y. Lee, PhD, is assistant professor of Sacred Scripture at Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received a PhD in theology from the University of Notre Dame in 2017. Dr. Lee’s academic research situates early Christian literature within the creative and competitive dynamics of the formation of early Jewish identities in the Greco-Roman world, in order to better understand the development of early Christian theology. Beyond the walls of academia he seeks new ways of promoting the development of theological understanding in the public discourse of the Church. He has been a member of the Community of Sant'Egidio since 1999

Fr. Thomas L. Knoebel has been a priest of the archdiocese of Milwaukee since 1969.  He earned his doctorate in systematic theology from Fordham University. For the past 30 years, beginning in 1981, Fr. Knoebel has served at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as professor of systematic theology; director of spiritual formation, 1988-1994; academic dean, 1994-2005; twice interim rector, 1992-1993, 2007; and most recently as vice rector and vice president for external affairs. After retiring in 2013, he returned as President-Rector in 2017. He published the first English translations of De Ecclesiasticis Officiis by St. Isidore, Archbishop of Seville, in 2008; and of St. Isidore’s Sententiae, published this year; both part of Paulist Press’s important patristics series Ancient Christian Writers.  Fr. Knoebel was appointed to the Editorial Advisory Board for the Ancient Christian Writers series in 2009.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1998 until his election as pope in 2013. As pope, he has proclaimed a gospel of joy, peace, and care for the poor, while leading reforms within the Vatican and beyond. His spiritual and moral leadership has become widely respected well beyond the confines of the Catholic Church.