Books > Christianity
|
Buy Now
The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Melanesia and Micronesia, 1850-1875 (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,432
Discovery Miles 14 320
You Save: R362
(20%)
|
|
The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Melanesia and Micronesia, 1850-1875 (Paperback)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
|
Description: The Founding of the Roman Catholic Church in Melanesia
and Micronesia, 1850 to 1875 is the result of Father Ralph
Wiltgen's years of archival work in Rome and at the headquarters of
religious orders who worked in Micronesia and Melanesia. It follows
his first historical book on the subject, The Founding of the Roman
Catholic Church in Oceania: 1825 to 1850, but narrows the focus.
The first book dealt with the whole of Oceania and emphasized
developments in Polynesia. This book concentrates on Melanesia and
Micronesia from 1850 to 1875, the period immediately before the
work of large numbers of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Marists,
and Divine Word Missionaries assumed great momentum in the period
between 1875 and 1914. Micronesia is a huge area of the world, made
up of numerous culturally and politically distinct groups of atolls
ranging over about 1,400 miles from the northwest to the southeast.
Its peoples speak scores of mutually unintelligible though related
languages on such island groups as the Marshalls, the Gilberts,
Nauru, and Kiribati. Far more heavily populated is Melanesia,
another huge area of the Pacific where as many as one thousand
distinct languages are spoken in an arc of islands extending from
just below the equator in a boomerang shape from today's Indonesian
controlled Papua and independent Papua New Guinea on the island of
New Guinea in the northwest all the way along the Solomon Island
chain to 25 south latitude to the southeast. In this book, Wiltgen
shows himself the undisputed master of the archives of the
Propaganda Fide, the Vatican's chief mission agency and the
religious orders that provided missionaries, all of which is
supplemented by his attention to the lives of key people of the
period. He shows the Propaganda now prodding missionary orders to
take on the difficult work of evangelizing these areas and on other
occasions struggling to keep up with and understand fast-moving
events and the colorful characters--both ecclesiastical and among
colonial administrators, rogue sea captains, and indigenous
leaders. Wiltgen lets the contemporary records speak for
themselves, though one can imagine his arched brow and mischievous
grin as he selects exactly the right quote to describe now an act
of missionary heroism and now an act of self-promotion. It is a
masterful book, making available the early history of one of
Catholicism's greatest missionary successes, helping the reader
understand both the idealism of the vision and the way in which
concrete events and people affected the outcome. Endorsements:
""Drawing upon years of archival research, Ralph Wiltgen provides a
unique resource of previously unpublished and unknown detail on the
origins of Catholicism in Micronesia and Melanesia from 1850 to
1875. This fine work fills a gap in the broader history of
Christianity in Oceania and is essential reading for everyone
interested in that history."" --Roger Schroeder, SVD Professor of
Cross-Cultural Ministry Catholic Theological Union at Chicago
""This monumental volume occupies a special place alongside
scholarly histories of Pacific missions. Wiltgen presents the story
with a level of detail and thoroughness that no other Pacific
historian has attempted to match. As year proceeds to year and
sometimes month to month, the reader follows the course of mission
life in a way that is not possible in the other, more cursory
histories. We see how concrete people make an impact on the
Catholic missions and how unexpected actors change the course of
events. Nowhere else in Pacific mission history can one get this
wealth of insight into the people behind the missions as well as
into the minds of the missionaries themselves."" --Charles W.
Forman Professor Emeritus of Missions Yale University (from the
preface) About the Contributor(s): Ralph M. Wiltgen, SVD, was a
Divine Word Missionary and Roman Catholic priest for over
fifty-seven years. Born in 1921, he died in Dece
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.