A Home He Never Returned To: EWTN’s New One-Hour Film on Pope Francis’s Buenos Aires Years

Premiere and promise: EWTN’s one-hour look at the pope’s early life

EWTN is set to air a one-hour documentary that aims to walk viewers back to the streets and parish halls of Buenos Aires where Jorge Mario Bergoglio grew up. The film promises a close, human portrait of the man who became Pope Francis and centers on a lasting question the film raises: why did he never return to live in Argentina after taking the papacy? The documentary’s runtime and the network’s announcement make clear this is a concise, deliberately focused feature meant for a broad audience — not a long, exhaustive biography.

From the barrio to the cassock: the life the film explores

The documentary leans on the simple facts of Bergoglio’s background to explain how those years shaped him. He was born into a working-class family in Buenos Aires, the eldest son in a household where faith and hard work were part of daily life. The film describes a childhood marked by tight family ties, modest means, and the kinds of local friendships and loyalties that anchor a neighborhood.

As a young man he entered the Jesuit order, a decision the film treats as the hinge between the life he might have led in Argentina and the public role he would take on later. Viewers are shown the early stages of his spiritual formation: seminary classrooms, the discipline and ritual of Jesuit life, and the mentors who nudged him toward a life of service. The documentary highlights a few formative events often mentioned in biographies — close encounters with poverty in Buenos Aires, formative parish work, and crises within Argentina that tested his pastoral instincts — to show how these moments shaped his pastoral style and priorities.

Importantly, the film frames these episodes in human terms. It does not dwell on high theology. Instead, it focuses on the people who mattered: family members, parishioners and fellow priests who remember a young Jorge as grounded and unflashy, someone whose decisions were colored by loyalty and a practical sense of charity.

How the film is put together: interviews, memory and archive

The documentary is presented as a tight package for a television audience. It mixes contemporary interviews with those who knew Bergoglio in Argentina — neighbors, former students, clergy — and archival material such as family photos, public speeches and footage of Buenos Aires itself. That mix gives viewers a sense of place as much as of person: the sights and sounds of the city are used as part of the storytelling.

Rather than a cinematic essay, the film is constructed as a straightforward TV feature. The narrative voice leans on recollections and documents to build a timeline, and the filmmakers use a few recurring images to tie scenes together: parish life, soccer fields, and the neighborhoods where Bergoglio’s formative relationships took root. The approach is intimate and accessible, aiming to bring a wide audience into a conversation about memory and identity rather than to produce an investigative exposé.

Why the story matters: return, memory and the wider Catholic conversation

The documentary’s central tension — why Bergoglio never returned to live in Argentina after becoming pope — is the point that will draw most viewers. That question matters on two levels. First, it’s personal: for a country that watched one of its own rise to the papacy, the absence of a return is a real emotional note, and the film treats it as such. Second, it’s symbolic: the decision not to return can be read in many ways — as an acceptance of the universal role of pope, as a practical necessity, or as a choice shaped by relationships and history.

The film does not claim to settle the question. Instead, it opens space for different interpretations, letting interview subjects suggest why home remained in memory rather than in residence. For many viewers, that unresolved feeling will be the film’s most honest element: men and women who once knew Bergoglio are shown grappling with public fame and private ties, and the film respects that tension rather than forcing a tidy answer.

For the Catholic community, the portrait will matter because it reframes the pope not just as a global leader with policy views and public gestures, but as someone whose pastoral instincts were forged in neighborhood parishes. That intimacy is the documentary’s main contribution: it nudges viewers to see the human roots of choices that later had worldwide consequences.

When to watch and where to find more

EWTN has announced a one-hour premiere on its schedule. The network’s press release and programming grid list broadcast times and any on-demand availability that follows the premiere. Viewers who want the film’s context can look for related coverage and interviews around the broadcast window, where producers and interview subjects often expand on the film’s themes.

Sources

• prnewswire.com