May 2025 Publishers Newsletter

MAY 2025

Dear Friends,

          We have a new Pope—Leo XIV! Like other U.S. Catholics, we are delighted to have a pontiff raised in Chicago. Even more: with many in the church, and certainly at Maryknoll, we are heartened by his identity as a missionary, and one with deep roots among the people of Peru. This news eclipses the 55^th anniversary this month of Orbis Books. But there is a connection.

Maryknoll founded Orbis in 1970 to amplify theological voices from the “margins and peripheries.” And foundational to that effort was our publication of A Theology of Liberation by Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez. It is not a stretch to imagine that Pope Leo has been an Orbis reader!

          We further rejoice that Pope Leo has elevated the memory of Pope Leo XIII, who initiated the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching—another cornerstone of our program. We look forward to supporting him, as we did his predecessor, in his effort to promote the mission of Christ, the message of peace, justice for the poor, dialogue among religions, and care for creation.

          And if I could welcome Pope Leo with a selection of Orbis titles, I might begin with three titles published this month.

          In Many Paths with Mary: Popular Piety and the Future Church, Michael J. Rogers examines the way that popular religion, expressed in devotions to Mary, Mother of God, points to the interplay between the lived faith of a local church and the unity of the People of God. Among the traditions he explores are those of Our Lady of Copacabana in Bolivia, Our Lady of Lourdes in France, and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.

          Historian and missiologist Andrew F. Walls (d. 2021) was admired as a pioneering scholar in the history of mission and world Christianity. (His first book with Orbis, The Missionary Movement in Christian History, was named by Christianity Today as one of the top 100 books of the twentieth century.) His last book, edited by Mark R. Gornik, is Christian Conversion and Mission: A Brief Cultural History. It is a beautifully written, lucid summary of his essential insights about the relation between faith and culture.

          Finally, Caminemos con Jesús: Toward a Hispanic/Latino Theology of Accompaniment by Roberto S. Goizueta, is now published in a 30^th anniversary edition. Hosffman Ospino calls it “an immediate classic that decades later continues to speak insightfully and prophetically about what it means to journey as American Catholics through Hispanic eyes.”

And so together, on a journey with many paths, the Church begins a new chapter.