Pope Francis here presents his hopes and aspirations for the Church in the future. Over the course of 16 conversations with Father Antonio Spadaro from 2013 to 2017, Pope Francis engages in a valuable dialogue. His impact on the modern world is extraordinary. He has turned the Catholic Church upside-down, flung open the windows of the Vatican and purged the Augean stables of simony, nepotism and financial skulduggery. But above all he is engaged with the poor, the starving and the marginalized.

He does not sit down in a room in the Vatican and write learned books. He is in constant dialogue with the outside world and with the universal Catholic Church. He likes being asked questions and finds it easy to respond. In this new book are some of his most valuable engagements in dialogue form with people of all sorts and kinds. Several of the interviews in this volume were originally meant to remain as private conversations. Father Spadaro recorded these free, spontaneous conversations for his own use, but upon listening again, he was struck by “a vision of church and a vision of the world” and worked with Pope Francis to make “rich vision” available to a wider audience.

Open to God: Open to the World offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind and workings of this entirely different Pope. As we see in these conversations the Franciscan revolution is under way and, in spite of Francis’s critics, the revolution will roll on and new horizons will be opened for the one and a half billion Catholics in the world today. Including a preface by Pope Francis himself, as well as thoughts on his recent trips to Colombia, Myanmar, Chile, and Peru, Open to God: Open to the World reveals a leader’s vision for progress.