The Associated Press is reporting this morning that "Pope Benedict XVI has granted a series of interviews to a German journalist that will form the basis of a new book expected later this year."
This isn't just any journalist, however, but Peter Seewald, with whom Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger repeatedly collaborated while head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Two of the books drawn from previous interviews, Salt of the Earth: The Church at the End of the Millennium (compare prices) and God and the World (compare prices) are indispensable volumes for anyone who wants to understand the mind of the Holy Father and what he hopes to accomplish during his papacy.
The AP account does not say what the interviews, which took place in July at Pope Benedict's summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, concerned. But we will know soon enough: The Vatican publishing house will release the book by the end of the year. English-language readers, however, will have to wait a bit longer: The book will first be released in German and Italian.
This is excellent news. Seewald, by the way, converted to Catholicism as a result of his earlier interviews with then-Cardinal Ratzinger.