Six Popes: My Life in the Christian Faith

“Monsignor Franco is known as an engaging storyteller of his impactful time in the Church. Read this book and you will see why.” ― Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archdiocese of New York

Six Popes: A Son of the Church Remembers is Monsignor Hilary C. Franco’s engaging memoir and a story only a son can tell, a son not only of the Catholic Church, but also of Italian immigrants.

From Belmont, his Bronx neighborhood, Franco rose to work with the highest and most influential figures of the Roman Catholic Church.

As a young man he attended Rome’s premier seminary, soon after becoming the special assistant to Archbishop Fulton Sheen. As a priest he would travel the world, and he recounts a harrowing experience in the Deep South in the early 1960s, his work at the Vatican Councils that redefined the Church, and his time posted at the Church’s diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C., and the United Nations. This most formidable churchman reveals his tales of intellectual, pastoral, and diplomatic service to the Catholic Church, enlivened by recollections of the fascinating people he came to know from U.S. presidents and foreign heads of state, to religious leaders like Padre Pio and Saint Mother Teresa.

The title of his current role, Advisor at the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations, gives little hint of the drama of the times he recollects.

Stories of this book’s six pontiffs that Franco served under ― John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis ― offer landmarks along Franco’s trek through the corridors of spiritual power in New York, Washington, D.C., and Rome.

Six Popes: A Son of the Church Remembers is written from a unique eyewitness vantage on many of the events and movements that shaped our world and the Catholic Church. There is really no other book like it.

Monsignor Hilary Franco was ordained a priest in Rome at the young age of 22 and received a doctorate in Biblical Theology from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, among other degrees. He served in the Parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St. Dominic’s in the Bronx, and Assumption Church in Staten Island. He was also a member of the Board of Editors of World Mission magazine and also contributed Biblical articles to the New Catholic Encyclopedia. He then served in the Diplomatic Corps of the Vatican at the Apostolic Delegation in Washington D.C. and was named an official of the Prefecture of the Economic Affairs of the Holy See in the Vatican. 

After two years, he was named Official of the Congregation for the Clergy and was in charge of the English desk for 24 years, which he initiated. He served as Judge of the Interocean Ecclesiastical Tribunal and was named Monsignor in 1971 and Prelate of his Holiness in 1981. An active member of the Catholic Biblical Association of America, he has been the recipient of several international awards which he shared with the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Mother Teresa. The Monsignor is the author of Bishop Sheen Mentor and Friend and a frequent contributor to Newsmax Magazine & TV. He now lives & works in the New York City metro area.