A down-to-earth and deeply intimate portrait of Pope Francis and his faith, based on interviews with the men and women who knew him simply as Jorge Mario Bergoglio Early in the evening of March 13, 2013, the newly elected Pope Francis stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica and did something remarkable: Before he imparted his blessing to the crowd, he asked the crowd to bless him, then bowed low to receive this grace. In the days that followed, Mark K. Shriver - along with the rest of the world - was astonished to see a pope who paid his own hotel bill, eschewed limousines, and made his home in a suite of austere rooms in a Vatican guesthouse rather than the grand papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace. By setting an example of humility and accessibility, Francis breathed new life into the Catholic Church, attracting the admiration of Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Shriver retraces Francis's personal journey, revealing the origins of his open, unpretentious style, and explaining how it revitalized Shriver's own faith and renewed his commitment to the Church. Shriver travels to Bergoglio's native Argentina to meet with the people who knew him as a child, as a young Jesuit priest, and as a reformist bishop. Shriver visits the confessional where Bergoglio first felt called to a faith-based life, and takes us inside the humble parish where the future pontiff's pastoral career began: a church created from a converted vegetable shed deep in the villas miserias - or misery slums - of San Miguel. In these impoverished surroundings, Bergoglio answered Christ's call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless, following the example set by his papal namesake, St. Francis of Assisi. Author Mark Kennedy Shriver is the son of Sargent Shriver, whom he wrote about in his memoir, A Good Man (2012), and president of Save the Children Action Network in Washington, D.C.