“In the saint, the theological exposition of the divine mystery captures both the most pressing questions of the saint’s time and the exact answer God wishes to give to a specific age. The saint, therefore, not only embodies the question and drama of his historical era but is also given a thought or insight into the divine mystery revealed in Christ, which then becomes his task to obediently, gratuitously, and laboriously unfold so that all persons may become reacquainted with the ‘whole,’ that is, with the truth of God and of man.”
Taking this understanding as its starting principle, the John Paul II Institute formed an editorial board, with the support of the Knights of Columbus and in partnership with The Catholic University of America Press as publisher, to undertake the publication in English of the complete works of Karol Wojtyła (Part I of the project) and selected works of John Paul II (Part II).
In its first part, the ECE offers the English translation of the works of Karol Wojtyła, most of which were originally composed in Polish. This part is comprehensive and wishes to render available to a wider readership what Wojtyła wrote and said as a philosopher, teacher, priest, and bishop before being elected pope. Different versions and editions of texts are compared, and the differences are marked by a critical apparatus.
The second part of the ECE will offer an English translation—either one previously published or original to the ECE—of St. John Paul II’s papal texts deemed most important from a theological or philosophical perspective. Thus, unlike the first part, the second is not comprehensive. Since most readers are interested in knowing what St. John Paul II said on a given issue, the fifteen projected volumes of the second part of the ECE are ordered thematically, and each volume will gather all relevant texts regarding a topic such as Christology, marriage and family, the priesthood, the nature of the Church, or theological anthropology.
The first volume of this series, Person and Act and Related Essays, was published in May 2021. The volume offers an entirely new translation of the title work, as well as all of Wojtyła’s other texts related to its content and written both before and after its publication.
The second volume offers The Lublin Lectures as well as essays that deal with the ethical nature of human acts and lived-experience and is slated to appear in 2023.
The editorial board includes:
- Rev. Antonio López, FSCB, General Editor
- Carl A. Anderson
- David S. Crawford
- Nicholas J. Healy
- Grzegorz Ignatik, Editor of Manuscripts
- David L. Schindler