The oldest Catholic journal published in Rome, La Civiltà Cattolica, will be published in Japanese as part of Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation’s Vatican and Japan 100 Years Project to highlight the history of exchanges between Japan and the Vatican. The announcement coincides with the 170th anniversary of the journal this year.
The Japanese edition, which will be available from April 2021, will be one of six versions of the publication, the other five being Italian, Spanish, French, Korean, and Chinese. It is hoped that the Japanese edition will help strengthen the relationship between Vatican and Japan.
“Today, it is necessary to have a wide range of perspectives in order to understand reality. The authors of all the papers published in this journal are Jesuits, but in recent years they have spanned more countries on each continent. In this way, La Civiltà Cattolica has become even more international,” wrote Editor-in-Chief Fr Antonio Spadaro SJ in his message on the announcement of the Japanese edition.
Fr Spadaro noted the involvement of the Jesuits in the history of Christianity in Japan, the longstanding relationship with the Holy See that has spanned more than seven decades, and Pope Francis’ visit to the country in 2019 that “gave birth to the concept of the Japanese version of this magazine”.
La Civiltà Cattolica, which has been published continually since 1850 when it was given as a project to the Jesuits by Pope Pius IX, aims to serve as a bridge between the church and the world, and to contribute to free conversation. The magazine’s multilingual readership forms a core part of its identity and internationality.
Meanwhile, the Kadokawa Culture Promotion Foundation aims to contribute in furthering the friendship between Japan and the Vatican over the next 100 years, alongside support from the Pontifical Council for Culture (Pontificium Consilium de Cultura). From 2020 to 2021, the Vatican and Japan 100 Years Project will feature public symposiums, publications, and art exhibitions centred on research on Japanese documents existing in the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Vatican Apostolic Archive.