Pope Francis has called for reform to take powers away from the Vatican and said Catholics should be more engaged in helping the needy, in a key Vatican document released on Tuesday.
The Catholic leader said he was open to suggestions on how his role should change, using an informal style in his first "apostolic exhortation", which marked a break from his predecessor, Benedict XVI.
In the document - a type of long open letter used by popes to communicate with their faithful - the Pope said it was time for "a conversion of the papacy", adding that "excessive centralisation, rather than proving helpful, complicates the Church's life".
The Pope has instituted a council of cardinals to advise him on reforms including a shake-up of the Vatican bureaucracy after a series of high-profile scandals in recent years.
The Vatican this month also launched a worldwide consultation of Catholic dioceses including questions about pastoral care for same-sex couples and remarried divorcees.
In the document, Pope Francis stressed the importance of the church's social message.
"The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode," he said.
The Pope said ties with Islam had taken on "great importance" for the Catholic Church because of the growing number of Muslim immigrants in many traditionally Christian countries.
"We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition," he said.
Much of the exhortation was devoted to the need for a more joyful approach to faith reflected in the document's Latin title "Evangelii Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel).
"There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter," he said, adding that the Christian message should not be "a catalogue of sins and faults".
The document included practical tips for priests on how to give better homilies as well as a call for them to be closer to their parishioners.
"I do not want a Church concerned with being at the centre and then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures," he said, condemning "structures which give us a false sense of security ... while at our door people are starving".
