--- title: Pope Francis: 6 New Books for His Visit description: A whole new shelf for the papal visit canonical: https://time.com/4041731/pope-francis-books/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-23T02:12:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:43:42.277Z article:section: Ideas og:title: 6 New Books About Pope Francis og:description: A whole new shelf for the papal visit og:url: https://time.com/4041731/pope-francis-books/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 6 New Books About Pope Francis twitter:description: A whole new shelf for the papal visit twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 6 New Books About Pope Francis > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Sep 23, 2015 2:12 AM UTC by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Sep 23, 2015 2:12 AM UTC Pope Francis’s visit to the U.S. has generated plenty of attention, and the publishing world was well prepared. Here are a few new volumes. ### _Pope Francis: The Struggle for the Soul of Catholicism_  Bloomsbury USA By Paul Vallely “After two papacies of philosophically precise rigidity, Pope Francis, in just two years, has legitimized an alternative. No one can say that the only way to be Catholic is to be dour and rules-based. He has shown that another kind of Catholicism is possible. Those who have lived through his papacy will never forget it.” [_Aug. 18_](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1632861151/?tag=timecom-20)_; A second edition, updated and expanded from its original_ [_2013 publication_](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1472903706/?tag=timecom-20)_._ ### _The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope_  Picador By Austen Ivereigh “The people of Buenos Aires recall how at Christmas, Cardinal Bergoglio used to take the baby Jesus from the crib to show to the congregation, saying, ‘This is God. God is tenderness.’ Francis is giving the Church and the world that lesson. The word for merciful in Latin, _misericors_, contains _cor_, meaning heart, and _miseri_, meaning the poor … To experience God as _misericordia_ is to enter into the life of God, and to grasp the revelation of Jesus.” [_Paperback Aug. 25_](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250074991/?tag=timecom-20)_; hardcover published in 2014_ ### _Francis, Pope of Good Promise_  St. Martin's Press By Jimmy Burns “Nothing I have come across in the course of my researches has dissuaded me from the belief that the key to fully understanding Bergoglio and Francis lies in the fact that he is a Jesuit. For St. Ignatius Loyola, the founding father of the Jesuits, one of the great spiritual tenets was that true spirituality lies in ‘finding God in all things.’ For Ignatius, God cannot be confined within the walls of a Catholic church, but can be found in every moment of the day, in other people.” [_Sept. 1_](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1250076498/?tag=timecom-20) ### _The Promise of Francis: The Man, the Pope, and the Challenge of Change_  Gallery Books By David Willey “He learned that scores of homeless people were sleeping rough literally on his doorstep, sheltering in the embrace of Bernini’s colonnades facing St. Peter’s Basilica, or in doorways around the Vatican. So he asked his almoner, the Polish priest whose job it is to help the most needy in the Vatican neighborhood, to distribute hundreds of new sleeping bags, to install showers in the public toilets discreetly hidden behind the colonnades, and to arrange for a barber to give free haircuts once a week.” [_Sept. 8_](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1476789053/?tag=timecom-20) ### _The Francis Effect: A Radical Pope’s Challenge to the American Catholic Church_  Rowman & Littlefield By John Gehring “Even with the horrific clergy abuse scandals, the crass politicization of Communion in past U.S. elections, the Vatican’s crackdown on American nuns, the heavy-handed policing of theologians, and the un-Christian way some Catholic schools have treated gay and lesbian teachers, many Catholic progressives who, like me, love our church refused to jump ship … The election of Pope Francis signaled a refreshing new season for the church, full of hope and renewal.” [_Aug. 13_](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1442243201/?tag=timecom-20) ### _The Tweetable Pope: A Spiritual Revolution in 140 Characters_  HarperOne By Michael J. O’Loughlin “Using his @Pontifex account, Pope Francis communicates ancient truths, spiritual insights, and bursts of wisdom instantly to his millions of followers. And with the highest re-Tweet rate … among global leaders, Pope Francis has a platform to spread his spiritual revolution further than any pope before. The pope is able to reach out directly to his people. It’s the perfect platform for Francis as he tries to revitalize the Church, one believer at a time.” [_Sept. 8_](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062434993/?tag=timecom-20) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4041731/pope-francis-books/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4041731/pope-francis-books/"},"headline":"6 New Books About Pope Francis","datePublished":"2015-09-23T02:12:07.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:43:42.277Z","description":"A whole new shelf for the papal visit","url":"https://time.com/4041731/pope-francis-books/","keywords":["Books","Religion","Pope Francis","faith"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4041731/pope-francis-books/","name":"6 New Books About Pope Francis"}}]}] ```