Agenzia Fides

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Library of the Pontifical Urban University has published the LXXV volume of " Bibliographia Missionaria" for the year 2011. This work is unique in its kind, it offers vast documentation on books and articles about the world of missionary activity and its various aspects, both historical and contemporary: religious orders, missionary congregations, mission territories, methodology of mission, interreligious dialogue, ecumenism, new religious Movements...
Each year it presents an exhaustive panorama of about 4000-5000 signals on what has been published on the subject of mission in more than 800 periodicals all over the world. Each volume also presents 30/40 book reviews prepared by experts in missiology.
The volume is in English, and the citations from books and articles are in the original language: English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish and Scandinavian. Bibliographia Missionaria was founded in 1925 by Fr. Johannes Rommerskirchen, OMI, and the publication was interrupted only during World War II. In these 76 years it has seen a remarkable evolution and substantial changes have been introduced in its content and structure: from 80 pages in the first volume, there are now 571. Since 1978 Bibliographia Missionaria is joined together with the Library of the Pontifical Urban University. The current editor is Fr. Marek Rostrowski, OMI, a librarian.
Volume LXXV, last to be published in the year 2011, signals 4,160 articles, essays and publications on 23 topics including: the theology of mission, mission history, current and future status of the mission, missionary institutions, ecumenical dialogue and mission, religions, mission and atheism, mission and culture, situation of the mission in different continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, the United States and Canada, Australia and Oceania. The Appendix presents the list of the 75 volumes of Bibliografia Missionaria published, with the main references. It also includes reviews on 40 books on missionary subjects. The book is completed with two ample indexes - the authors and people, topics - and the list of magazines consulted. For more information: Urbaniana University Press. Via Urbano VIII, 16 - 00120 – Vatican City. Email: uupdir@urbaniana.edu. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 02/10/2012)