“I asked Pope Francis a child’s question”

One fine day, in 2023, the Vatican called you to offer to accompany Pope Francis on his trip to Mongolia. How did you react?

At first I thought it was a joke. When I realized that this was not the case, I measured my luck. The Vatican opened its doors to me, offered me the opportunity to meet all the people I wanted, to ask all the questions, and then write what I wanted, with total freedom. No one had done this before. It was an incredible opportunity.

Why you?

François often told his colleagues: “Take risks!” In a way, with me, they took it. I am an atheist, of a rather anticlerical tendency, and I am not very aware of the life of the Church. However, they chose me. Perhaps precisely because of my atheism, which protected me from excessive deference towards the Pope. Perhaps also because despite everything I have a Catholic culture, that I am known, that I am Spanish-speaking, like Francis… There are many possible explanations, but none is enough. There remains one, the one I prefer: it is the choice of the Holy Spirit!

The Holy Spirit? So have you found your faith?

No not at all. She remains a great mystery to me. What is faith? A poetic intuition? A superpower? Often, and particularly during the writing of this book, The madman of God at the end of the world, I felt a form of jealousy towards those who believe in God. Starting with my parents, very loving and convinced Christians. They raised me in a Catholicism which nourished me until adolescence. But I lost my faith suddenly, at 14, radically. Today, even if I wanted to find her, I wouldn’t know how to do it. I don’t believe you can get to God through reason alone. Even less by making, like Blaise Pascal, a utilitarian bet.

Did your parents suffer from it?

I think they were so sure of their faith that they thought they had passed it on to us and that my sisters and I’s atheism was a rebellion against the authoritarianism of Spanish Catholicism, which was closely linked to Francoism. Maybe they were disappointed, but they never showed it. And they never tried to impose it on us or make us feel any form of pressure. I see it as an admirable act of love (silence). It moves me to think about this.

You immediately thought of your mother when you were asked to travel with Pope Francis…

My father died a few years ago. My mother was certain that she would see him again after her death. Nothing weird about that, right? Eternal life is the heart of Christianity. But it seemed to me that it was one thing to have, since childhood, this somewhat theoretical belief, and that it was another to hear the Pope answer a direct and personal question. So I wanted to ask François, not if eternal life existed, but if my mother was going to see my father again after his death. I followed him to the ends of the earth to ask him this childish question and be able to give his answer to my mother.

So what? What did he answer?

The answer is in the book… But we must not say anything to the readers of the Pilgrim.

Promise? Because the book is also a bit of a thriller. How will I manage to ask the Pope the question? What will his response be? What I can say is that this question – will my mother see my father again after he dies? -, I asked it to dozens of Catholic interlocutors, at the Vatican and elsewhere. And no one gave me the same answer as the Pope. Surprising, right?

Throughout the book, you indeed address many subjects with numerous interlocutors: faith, the Church, evangelization, the secularization of the West. Ultimately, all of this interests you greatly…

Of course. As a European writer, Christianity is my culture. I wanted to try to see more clearly in this heritage which is both so heavy – there have been so many horrors committed in the name of God – and so glorious, if only through all these giants who believed in Jesus: Saint Augustine, Saint Francis of Assisi, Dante, Kant… and Bach, whose music constitutes a sort of soundtrack to my book.

What surprised you?

The hardest part was clearing my eyes of all my prejudices. Look at the Church with new eyes to see what is really happening there. Who are the people who live in the Vatican? What do they do with their days? What are they talking about? And who is this man, François? I expected intrigue, secrets, quarrels… or worse. I discovered the opposite: men – and some women – open, welcoming… and very in tune with François. Today, I can say one thing: Mongolia is an “exotic” place, but the Vatican is much more so.

And Francis himself, what memory do you have of him?

His mischievous smile. When I started this adventure, I really believed, like Emil Cioran (Romanian philosopher born in 1911 and died in 1995, editor’s note) that “all religion is a crusade against the sense of humor.” This is probably what kept me away from the Church. Because, for a novelist – Cervantes is a wonderful example with Don Quixote -, humor and irony are essential things. I thought Christians were sad, sullen. Francis demonstrated quite the opposite. The most beautiful word he said, in my opinion, was a confidence he made to his friend – who became mine – the journalist Lucio Brunelli: “You know? The closest thing to divine grace is a sense of humor.” It’s wonderful to say that. And that is undoubtedly true. The Spanish word graceful difficult to translate, refers to both humor and someone you laugh with. It is very close to Grace grace. When we laugh – we see it clearly in children – it is as if we understand everything, as if the grace of God was with us.

Mongolia plays an important role in your book. This country of 3.5 million inhabitants has only 1,500 Christians. You devote very beautiful pages to the missionaries you met there…

I tell the story of a Mongolian teenager, in the early 2000s. Poor, orphan, furious at everything and everyone, one day he started yelling at a missionary who lived there and had helped him for years: “Why are you living there? What is it for? What are you looking for in the end?” The missionary did not say a word. He just pointed to the cross he wore around his neck. And the young man was turned around. A few years later, he became the first Mongolian priest.

With this type of priest or nun, we are far from the figure of the conquering and proselytizing missionary. Believer or not, it is very difficult not to admire these men and women who left their country, their family, their ambition, to help the poor, the old, single women. Francis saw in them the original and joyful vitality of Christianity and he was right. I came home and told everyone, “The Church is in trouble? I have the solution: all missionaries!”

How did you experience François’ death?

My book was released in Spain less than three weeks before his death… Some people did not fail to call it a marketing stunt or to assert that the Pope had read my book and that he died from it! (Laughs.) More seriously, the death of François, old and sick, did not really surprise me but moved me, of course. I lived “with” him for almost two years. I deeply believe that he was a great pope. And, with me, he was magnificently human.

And Leo XIV?

He has resumed the fine clothes of the pope, reads his speeches to the end, lives in the apostolic palace… Apparently, he is therefore more conventional than Francis. The cardinals undoubtedly chose him for this: to continue on the same path as Francis, but in a quiet manner, by easing tensions and healing certain wounds that are deeper than we think. What I like about Léon is that, through his story, he is a man of the Curia and a missionary. And you will have understood, I love missionaries!