ECCLESIA. - Illustrated monthly review (Città del Vaticano). Promoted by the Information Office established to seek news of prisoners of war and to connect them with their families, it appeared (Sept. 1942) as a fitting testimony to the Pope’s charity. To photographic and statistical documentation it added Vatican reporting, and the observation of the Church’s work in historical documents. It also gave space to literature in every language, while its principal subject remained the survey of charity exercised towards the victims of the conflict, as commentary on reports and photographs sent out by the Office and the Secretariat of State. Throughout the entire duration of the war, it thus coordinated a substantial body of first-hand informational material, acting as the voice of the S. Sede for all the good that radiated upon endless miseries.
In the immediate post-war period, centred upon new developments, it was the flourishing of various columns that ensured its vitality. At a certain point a monographic orientation seemed to prevail (v. war”). Thereafter the review’s line adhered to the programme of documenting Catholic life in its most significant events, also ranging into poetry and art. Noteworthy are the “Vatican Chronicles.”
BBL.: U. Piazza, Una visiva: Ecclesia, in L'osservatore romano della domenica, 9th year, 1949. Luigi Hutter