Open to God

Following his previous book with Spadaro, My Door Is Always Open, Pope Francis here presents his hopes and aspirations for the Church in the future. Pope Franciss impact on the modern world is extraordinary. It is no surprise that he was voted Time Magazine Man of the Year along with Martin Luther King and JFK. He has turned the Catholic Church upside-down, flung open the windows of the Vatican and purged the Augean stables of corruption, simony, nepotism and financial skulduggery. But above all he is engaged with the poor, the starving and the marginalised. Where there are trouble spots in the world, he goes and invariably people say his visits change everything. Soon he will be visiting Burma. Unlike his predecessor, 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. On the one hand, there is his most recent engagement with Jesuits in Colombia priests who are fighting the drug barons and fighting for human rights. In another lengthy piece, he talks about the inspiration of scripture, in a way which shows how this is a living source of inspiration. The Franciscan revolution is under way and in spite of his vehement critics the revolution will roll on and new horizons will be opened for the one and a half billion Catholics in the world today.