Vatican publishing house defends choice of Doubleday for papal book

Published: 2007-02-01

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican publishing house defended the choice of Doubleday as the English-language publisher of Pope Benedict XVI's new book on Jesus. The book, "Jesus of Nazareth: From His Baptism to His Transfiguration," is scheduled to be released March 27 in North America. Citing Doubleday's "respectful editorial curriculum," the Vatican publishing house said that when it contracted with the Italian publisher Rizzoli to handle the international translation and publication of the book, it expected Rizzoli to negotiate individual language rights with "the most important world publishing houses." The Vatican statement, issued Jan. 30, came in response to a front-page article in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale saying the English rights to the pope's new book will be in the hands of the same publisher responsible for "The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. Il Giornale said the assignment of rights to Doubleday, a division of Random House, which published Brown's book, occurred despite Vatican officials' recent complaints about how some publishers seem to enjoy making money from books that attack the church and the Christian faith.

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