Pope gives Vatican publishing house his authors' rights (CWN)

[stumbler]

Vatican, Jun. 01 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI has assigned to the Vatican publishing house all of his rights to the books he wrote before assuming the papacy.

A short communiqué released by the Vatican on June 1, signed by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State, indicates that the Libreria Editrice Vaticana will exercise “exclusive rights to economic utilization of the acts, works, and writings” written by the former Cardinal Ratzinger.

The transfer of rights does not affect the status of publishers who had already entered into agreements with the Pope. The Vatican statement indicated that the Pope’s move was made “without prejudicing the rights acquired by third parties” under existing contracts, and such agreements remain in force. Pope Benedict had written more than 40 books. Ignatius Press, which has handled the English-language publication of his work for more than 25 years, has enjoyed a windfall since his election to the papacy, selling more than 300,000 volumes in less than 6 weeks.

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[ElaineMomNC]

Speaking of the Pope’s books, they are starting to become more easily available, again! I received some last week through Amazon.com.

Currently I am reading “Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion.” It has a beautiful picture of Cardinal Ratzinger holding the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I am finishing the chapter Eucharist and Mission, which alone is worth the costs of these books.

 

[MaggieOH]

The last time I checked my local Catholic bookshop, all of the Ratzinger books had been sold out.

 

[amcalabrese]

I looked around like crazy and finally went back order with Amazon. I ordered three right after his election and they said they would come in mid to late June. Instead, I got all three of them about 2 weeks ago. I started “Milestones” Monday and already am close to being finished (it is not long and written in a nice conversational style). I also received “Salt of the Earth” and “The End of Time?: The Provocation of Talking about God” (the last of which is a symposium and not truly a book by the Pope).

 

[Saint_Andrew]

Dear All

It would be great to read some of his works, I hope they are inspirational, it is pleasing that he has release the rights to publish.

God Bless
Saint Andrew.

 

[thann]

I ordered several of his books through Amazon back in April and just got a note today that they finally shipped.

'thann

 

[Lisa_N]

amcalabrese:

I looked around like crazy and finally went back order with Amazon. I ordered three right after his election and they said they would come in mid to late June. Instead, I got all three of them about 2 weeks ago. I started “Milestones” Monday and already am close to being finished (it is not long and written in a nice conversational style). I also received “Salt of the Earth” and “The End of Time?: The Provocation of Talking about God” (the last of which is a symposium and not truly a book by the Pope).

Same here. I ordered them the day of his ordination and received them a week ago. I finished Milestones and agree it was very conversational and really painted a picture of how a family dealt with such a chaotic and frightening period in history.

On to the next one…

Lisa N