December Publishers Newsletter 2025

Dear Friends,

 

This year marks the 55^th anniversary of Orbis Books, the publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. Orbis was founded in 1970 with the mission of amplifying theological voices from the “Third World” countries where Maryknollers lived and worked.  The timing was auspicious, just two years after the famous meeting of the Latin American bishops’ conference in Medellín, Colombia, a conference that marked a prophetic turn for the church and opened a new way of doing theology. In 1971, the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez published A Theology of Liberation. Two years later Orbis published the English translation, and it became the cornerstone of our program—and an international movement.

            For many years we were best known for our program in liberation theology. But our attention to voices from the margins did not end in Latin America. African voices focused on inculturation; Asian voices brought in interreligious dialogue and efforts to express the gospel in non-Western forms. From North America we highlighted Black, Womanist, Latino/a, and Indigenous voices.

            The name Orbis comes from Latin for world, and over time our understanding of the world continued to grow and evolve. First came our attention to the earth, reflected in our Ecology & Justice Series. Then the work of acclaimed missiologist Andrew Walls and others in the new field of World Christianity. Via Teilhard de Chardin we explored the implications of cosmology, and an evolving universe. And of course, we continued to stress prophetic and engaged spirituality, Catholic social teaching, and works on peace and justice. All these concerns are reflected in a number of new Orbis Books titles.

            Victorino Pérez Prieto, a Spanish theologian, has written Unity and Harmony: Toward an Ecospirituality. Drawing on complexity theory, quantum science, philosophy, world religions, the mystical tradition, scripture, and Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, he shows the convergence of wisdom that underlines the essential ecological point: that everything is interconnected.

            In Jubilee Economics writer and activist Kelly Nikondeha offers the possibility of viable and liberating economic practices based on the principles of biblical jubilee, including her experiences working in Burundi.

            In Hearing Earth’s Call Peruvian-born scripture scholar Rodolfo Felices Luna offers a fascinating and  accessible exploration of the letter of First John through an eco-critical lens.

            Mac Loftin’s In the Twilight of the Christian West: A Theology of Mourning and Resistance draws on the vision of anti-fascist thinkers, mystics, and theologians who forged theological resistance to the authoritarian movements of their time. David Gushee calls it “a magnificently conceived theological critique of right-wing politicized Christianity and a profound alternative vision.”

            In Making Hope: Practices, Prayers, and Parable for a Changing Climate, O’neil Van Horn explores how slow, still, and often quiet practices can cultivate hope for ourselves, each other, and our planetary world.

            And Lisa J. Rankow, in Soul Medicine for a Fractured World: Healing, Justice, and the Path of Wholeness, weaves mysticism, justice, and ancestral wisdom into a map for collective healing of ourselves, our communities, and our world.

            And so the Orbis journey continues, bringing forth, per our tagline, “a world of books that matter.”

 

Peace and hope in this season of light,

Robert Ellsberg

Publisher