Some interesting data concerning the papal writings of Pope Francis.

Word count for papal encyclicals from 1878 to 1978 averaged between 4,000-10,000 words. Pope Francis has averaged 30,000 words per encyclical, and his post-synodal exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, alone runs nearly 60,000 words.

The pope’s shortest encyclical (Lumen fidei) is longer than St. Mark’s gospel and his 2013 exhortation Evangelii gaudium is 5x longer than St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.

In his 2019 post-synodal exhortation Christus vivit, Pope Francis cites himself 64 times in 299 paragraphs.

[All research & graphics courtesy of Mrs. Sharon Kabel. More data on this topic can be found at her blog, A Wild Sostenuto].