June Publishers Newsletter 2026

Dear Friends, 

 

First, I am delighted to report that four Orbis titles have received GOLD MEDALS from the prestigious Nautilus Awards.

 

·       Joyce Rupp, Years of Ripening: Reflections on Aging in the Later Years (“Conscious Aging”)

·       Kathleen Deignan, CND, ed., Thomas Berry: A Book of Hours (“Western Spirituality”)

·       David Toole, Love Made Me an Inventor: The Life of Maggy Barankitse—Humanitarian, Genocide Survivor, Citizen without Borders (“Heroic Journeys”)

·       Lisa J. Rankow, Soul Medicine for a Fractured World: Healing, Justice and the Path to Wholeness (“Right Livelihood”)

 

We also received three awards from the Association of Catholic Publishers

·       First Place, Biography to Love Made Me an Inventor: The Story of Mary Barankitse

·       Second Place, Spirituality to Cyprian Consiglio, Epiphanies of Nature and Grace: Twelve Meditations from a Life in Dialogue

·       Second Place, Theology to Mary C. Boys, Blessings of a New Dawn: Reorienting Christianity’s Relation to Judaism

 

We congratulate these authors on receiving these well-deserved recognitions!

           

Next, three of our new titles explore the connections between spirituality and justice. The first is Mending the Space Between: 7 Habits of Contemplative Justice by William Blaine-Wallace. The seasoned pastoral counselor and author of When Tears Sing  offers collaborative ways to pursue justice grounded in contemplation and compassion, enlivening both our faith and our passion for prophetic change.

 

The Lord’s Prayer Is Manifesto: The Three Dimensions of Jesus’s Sacred Revolution by Tim Clayton reveals how this familiar prayer of Jesus contains the gospel in synthesis, and how praying it fosters a communion with God, others, and creation.

 

James Robinson’s Beyond Factory Farming: A Contemplative-Prophetic Approach to Food presents a challenging approach to spirituality and justice that begins with our relationships with food, meals, and our fellow creatures. As Elizabeth Johnson comments: “By turns lyrical, fierce, and ultimately inspiring, it sheds light on US eating practices with deep spiritual insight. Warning: Read it and be changed the next time you sit down to eat.”

         

Finally, I’m writing this soon after the release of Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in The Time of Artificial Intelligence, which we plan to publish with critical commentaries by a range of Catholic thinkers. In the meantime, I was struck in particular by two places where Pope Leo indicated important developments in moral teaching. The first: “Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the 'just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated.” 

         

The second was in his acknowledgment of the role of the Catholic Church in tolerating and even supporting the practice of chattel slavery. Previous modern popes denounced the role of Christians in the trans-Atlantic slave trade but stopped short of recognizing the culpability of the Church itself. Pope Leo writes, “It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord. For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon.” He also calls for “vigilance” in the face of modern forms of slavery. An excellent resource for confronting this legacy is Christopher Kellerman’s All Oppression Shall Cease: A History Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church (a 2023 Catholic Media Association Award Winner.)

 

          As Saint John XXII said on his deathbed, "It is not the Gospel that changes; it is we who begin to understand it better."

 

Peace,

Robert Ellsberg

Publisher