Companies holding publishing rights of pope's works meet at Vatican

Published: 2005-12-14

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Companies that have held the rights to publish the written works of the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger met at the Vatican to discuss the limits and obligations of those rights. The Dec. 13-16 meeting was called to discuss "common editorial policies to protect the thought of Joseph Ratzinger," said Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, whose Ignatius Press holds the English-language rights to works written by Pope Benedict XVI prior to his election. The meeting, sponsored by the Vatican publishing house, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, included a daylong discussion of legal issues with the publishers, most of which are based in Germany and Italy. In June, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, announced that Pope Benedict had entrusted the Vatican publishing house with safeguarding and administering rights to everything he had written before his election. Cardinal Sodano said contracts already finalized with publishers would be respected, but that in the future all uses of the former Cardinal Ratzinger's writings would have to be negotiated with the Vatican publishers.

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