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Dictionary of the Cultural History of the Church in Latin America
Saturday, July 10, 2021
The Pontifical Council for Culture has launched a new initiative of its kind: the publication “online” of a Diccionario de Historia Cultural de la Iglesia en América Latina in the hope of being able to publish it one day in printed form. The project began in 2006 after a meeting in Lima with the representatives of all the Episcopal Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean. [To consult the dictionary, click here]
The initiative was promoted by the Dicastery of the Pontifical Council for Culture also at the behest of the Superior Authority. It was supported by the Presidents of the Council, first by Cardinal Paul Poupard and later by the present President Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, and by the various Secretaries of the Dicastery, starting with Fr. Bernard Ardura and the present Delegate Mons. Carlos Azevedo, with the collaboration of various heads of the Latin American section of the afore-mentioned Pontifical Council. In 2006, Comboni Fr. Fidel González Fernández, a former teacher of History at the Pontifical Urbanian and Gregorian Universities, was called to take charge of the project.
The scope of the Dictionary
The Dictionary is intended to provide an easily accessed source that shows the contribution that “The Christian Event” made to the identity, unity and originality of Latin America. In the ambit of Latin American historiography, there exist many works of cultural, economic, political and religious synthesis and analysis, both in individual countries and in the continent as a whole. One clearly evident lacuna is the lack of an instrument properly concerned with the Catholic Event in the cultural formation of the continent in the past five centuries.
The present situation of the dictionary
When the Dictionary was presented at the Vatican in December 2014, it had 650 articles. At the end of June 2021, it had reached 1525. During the Covid-19 pandemic, 145 new articles were incorporated and the format was updated to render it easier to use.
The number of consultations is at present around twenty thousand per month. Technically, the Dictionary has been placed online and served by a technical team from the UPAEP (The Autonomous Popular University of the State of Puebla, Mexico), which has now collaborated with the Pontifical Council for Culture for about 25 years. The collaboration is given gratis by the collaborators and the UPAEP.