Margaret and the Pope Go to Assisi

By Jon M. Sweeney and Roy DeLeon

In this fourth installment of “The Pope's Cat” series, Margaret and the Pope travel for the first time together away from the Vatican and out of Rome. They go by train to the Umbrian hill town of Assisi, a place of pilgrimage for Christians all over the world who want to remember the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Together they visit the great Basilica named for St. Francis, greet Franciscan friars at the monastery, attend a World Day of Prayer for Peace, meet religious leaders (each, it seems, with a very different hat!) from around the world, and see evidence of the spirit of St. Francis all over town.

Most of all, the Pope shows his love and care for his vulnerable creature friend, as at the beginning of the book when someone from the Curia has frightened Margaret and she's hiding in a closet in the Pope's apartment. “Don’t worry, il mio amore.” (Il mio amore means “My love.”) “People can be so fussy, can’t they?” the Pope says, picking her up in his arms.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paraclete Press
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781640604414

Jon M. Sweeney

Jon M. Sweeney is an award-winning author who has been interviewed in the Dallas Morning News and The Irish Catholic, and on television at CBS Saturday Morning. His book, The Pope Who Quit, (Doubleday/Image) was optioned by HBO. He is also author of forty other books on spirituality, mysticism, and religion, including Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart, with Mark S. Burrows (Hampton Roads), the biography Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Catechist, Saint (Liturgical Press), and Thomas Merton: An Introduction to His Life and Practices (St. Martin’s Essentials and Penguin Random House Audio, 2021). His bookish reputation is nothing new. In 2014, Publishers Weekly featured Jon in an interview titled, “A Life in Books and On the Move.” He began the 1990s as a theological bookseller in Cambridge, and ended the decade founding a multifaith publishing house, SkyLight Paths Publishing, in Vermont. He’s worked in books and publishing ever since. Today he writes, reviews, edits, and recommends books, speaks regularly at literary and religious conferences, is a Catholic married to a rabbi, and is active on social media (Twitter @jonmsweeney; Facebook jonmsweeney). Sweeney lives in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee.

Book preview

Margaret and The Pope Go to Assisi

THE POPE’S CAT SERIES

The story of a stray that was born on the Via della Conciliazione in Rome, was adopted by the Pope, and how she then runs the Vatican from museum to floorboard. For ages six and up.

This volume is preceded by

The Pope’s Cat

Margaret’s Night in St. Peter’s (A Christmas Story)

Margaret’s First Holy Week

JON M. SWEENEY

Illustrated by ROY DELEON

2020 First Printing

Margaret and the Pope Go to Assisi

Text copyright © 2020 by Jon M. Sweeney

Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Roy DeLeon

ISBN 978-1-64060-170-3

The Paraclete Press name and logo (dove on cross) are trademarks of Paraclete Press, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.

Names: Sweeney, Jon M., 1967- author. | DeLeon, Roy, illustrator.

Title: Margaret and the Pope go to Assisi / Jon M. Sweeney ; illustrated by Roy DeLeon.

Description: Brewster, Massachusetts : Paraclete Press, [2020] | Series: The Pope’s cat ; 4 | Summary: "Margaret the cat and the Pope travel together by train to Assisi. They visit the town where St. Francis of Assisi lived his life, now a