Pope to Release Book on Philosophy Next Year

From Zenit News Agency - The World Seen From Rome:



"John Paul II will release a new book, 'Memory and Identity: Conversation Between Millenniums,' next spring, says a Vatican spokesman.



Joaquin Navarro Valls, director of the Vatican press office, made the announcement Wednesday in Frankfurt, Germany.



The book will be published by the Italian publishing house Rizzoli, the Vatican Information Service confirmed today.



Rizzoli, which published the Pope's 'Opera Omnia Filosofica,' a volume of more than 1,000 pages, as well as other texts on literary criticism written by Karol Wojtyla, owns the world rights to the book. During the Frankfurt International Book Fair, now under way, there will be negotiations for its publication in other languages.



According to Navarro Valls, the book is a work on the philosophy of history in which the Pope considers topics such as modern democracy, liberty and human rights, the diverse concepts of nation, fatherland and the state, the more-than-functional relationship between nation and culture, the rights of man, and the relationship between church and state. "