Last Sunday, on 4 November, at St. Stanislaus church in Rome a meeting devoted to the documentation of the teaching of Pope John Paul II was held. It was organized by the Pontificate’s Centre for Research and Documentation (John Paul II’s Foundation) and the Pastoral Staff for Poles in the Eternal City. The meeting was entitled: “Do we know the teaching of our Pope? Around the Polish Bibliography of John Paul II”.
Fr. Hieronim Foksiński, director of the Pontifical Polish Institute for Ecclesiastical Studies in Rome, talked about the importance of bibliography as a “tool” in scientific work. He pointed out that the custom of preparing bibliographies dates back to ancient times, when, among others, the record of the manuscripts in the Library of Alexandria was created. Bibliographies are collections of documents collated in a specified system, so one can figure out the amount and range of materials concerning a specific topic and find easily the publication he wants. There are different types of bibliographies, which are determined by the criteria adopted for the selection of documents, preparing descriptions and the scope of origin of the literature, e.g. as bibliographies covering literature coming from all over the world or just from one specified country.
Relating to the bibliography of John Paul II, the guest of the meeting said that it is a national bibliography and a personal one, gathering the subjective and objective literature, that is, all the publications by the Pope and publications on his topics, which appeared in Poland. Fr. Foksiński also recalled that the idea of a bibliographic series dedicated to the Holy Father was born shortly after the election of Cardinal Wojtyla in the capital of St. Peter. The initiative came from Zofia Wilińska, the curator of the section on scientific information in the University Library in Łódź, who contacted Father Wiktor Gramatowskim SJ from the Institute for Ecclesiastical Studies. A first volume of Karol Wojtyla in the light of the publications in a bilingual Polish-Italian version was then prepared. The next seven volumes of the bibliography were prepared under the auspices of the Centre for Research and Documentation of the Pontificate.
The second guest of the meeting was Fr. Jan Główczyk, now administrator of the Hospice of St. Stanislaw in Rome, and before that a longtime director of the Centre, who talked about the “hard work of a few people” on the preparation of the bibliography. Apart from Fr. Gramatowski, who died in 1997, the authors of the bibliography are Zofia Wilińska and Danuta Gułajewska-Jabłkowska –who, unfortunately could not attend the meeting. Ks. Główczyk emphasized that thanks is due to making the records based on thorough examination, so that the descriptions contain brief information about the content of the publication, which greatly facilitates the researcher to find interesting items. He also described the working method of the authors: index card preparation, multiple visits to libraries in several cities in Poland, preparing the index, which is very detailed and finally – correction. Bibliography provides the building blocks from which others can discern the different types of writing on blessed John Paul II.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Fr. Andrzej Dobrzynski presented the eighth volume of the series John Paul II. Polish Bibliography documenting the year 1996. He reminded the participants that the bibliography covering the years 1949-1995 is available on-line on the website of the Federation of Catholic Libraries FIDES. Individuals and institutions interested in the published series of John Paul II. Polish Bibliography, are requested to contact the Centre for Research and Documentation of the Pontificate at info@jp2doc.org.
Fr. AD