Pope Francis: The People’s Pope
And there was one girl, Renata, who’s got a photographic memory. She’s a fantastic girl. And we said, we’d like a photograph of Pope Francis in May 2013. She said, oh, yes, and she would give the details of the occasion.
But, all of these, they were all of various religions, and some were Episcopalian. And they just fell in love with the project, the book, so much so that the senior editor said to me when we’d finished, he said, you know, it’s funny, we do books–we write books all day every day for a living. We do travel books – you know, they produce fantastic coffee table books – which said this team has really fallen in love with this man. And I thought that was really the most fantastic tribute that Pope Francis could have, even though he’ll never know about it. I mean, I’m not going to tell him. But, you know, I thought that was really, really nice.
Christopher Buck: Well, I’m looking at one of the pre-release copies of the book even as we speak, and it is – the pictures, the everything – is just so magnificent, and you really can get a feel by looking through this of who the man is and, not only his great faith, but his humanity.
Father Collins: Yeah. And in fact, interestingly, the photographer, Rodolfo, said to me one day, he said – we were talking about photographs and, he’s with him about six feet behind him at all his public events, etc. And he said, you know, it’s funny, when he’s at mass or celebrating liturgy, he’s very, and you know, composed and collected. But, he said, as soon as he takes off his vestments, goes back out to the people, he just comes back to life again.
He said–I think it was he who made this analogy – he’s like a flower pot that you’ve poured water into and suddenly springs back into life again. He really does seem to get energized by people. He really seems to enjoy listening. I mean, as Pope, I guess he doesn’t have too much time to listen to people, but he picks up the phone when people write him a letter. They’ve all started including their telephone number, on the off chance he will call. He does, and so much so that Crest Officer had to ask him to stop making these cold calls, because he said, first of all, a lot of pranksters are doing the same thing and phoning unsuspecting people and saying they’re the Pope.
