Some two dozen works of the late Pope Benedict XVI’s pre-papal writings will be made available in English, many for the first time, in a new translation project to be edited by Australian theologian Tracey Rowland. Source: OSV News.
Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican’s publishing house, has granted the United States-based Word on Fire Catholic Ministries’ academic division the exclusive English-language rights to translate and publish the collected works of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, which were written in the late pope’s native German.
Word on Fire announced the news in an October 24 press release, with the nonprofit’s founder, US Bishop Robert Barron, describing the value of the works as “inestimable”.
“They will serve future generations as a great repository not only of theological and spiritual wisdom, but of the history of a particular moment in the life of the Church,” Bishop Barron said.
Prior to his election as pope in 2005, Cardinal Ratzinger, a theologian and an expert witness at the Second Vatican Council, had headed up the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as the Pontifical Biblical Commission, the Pontifical International Theological Commission, and the drafting committee of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The late pope, who stepped down in 2013 and died in 2022, specifically described his vocation as “theological”, according to his Vatican biography.
Yet only half of the 25 volumes that comprise the collected works of Cardinal Ratzinger are available in English, Jason Paone, editor of Word on Fire Academic said.
A collection of Cardinal Ratzinger’s works under the title Theology of the Liturgy was released in English by Ignatius Press in 2014, a year after the publisher issued the late pope’s three-volume Jesus of Nazareth set.
Word on Fire Academic plans to work with Ignatius, as well as other publishers and institutions, to continue the series to bring all 25 volumes to the market over the next 12 years.
Professor Rowland said bringing Cardinal Ratzinger’s complete works to English-language audiences will make a “long-term contribution to Catholic scholarship” that will be “immeasurable.”
FULL STORY
New Translation Project To Publish Cardinal Ratzinger’s Collected Works In English (By Gina Christian, OSV News)
