The Mondadori Publishing Group is launching a new magazine, “Il Mio Papa” (My Pope), entirely devoted to Pope Francis.
The magazine, on sale for 50 cents, will be published every Wednesday (the first issue was out March 5) and for the first month plans to have a circulation of 3 million copies, meaning that the publishing house, which is owned by former Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, expects the magazine to be vastly popular.
The publication will report on how the Pope spends his days, from daily mass to meetings, with a focus on official events like the Wednesday general audience or the Sunday Angelus. Every issue will also feature a poster of Pope Francis with a “phrase of the week,” while a weekly column will retrace the story of his life.
The magazine’s editor, Aldo Vitali, explained that the idea to create a magazine entirely focused on the pope is due to Bergoglio’s huge popularity and to the new attention he has been able to bring on ethical, moral and religious questions, which the publication plans to tackle.
A popularity the publishing house now expects to cash in on. Pope Francis on his hand has said he is not particularly keen on the hyped attention he has been getting and on the mythology surrounding him. “The pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps calmly and has friends like everyone else. A normal person,” he has told Italy’s Corriere della Sera.
