by Gianni Valente
Rome – Hidden in the archives of many religious congregations and ecclesiastical institutions around the world lies a treasure that deserves to be rediscovered and shared. This is the treasure of “missionary cinema,” the rich heritage of audiovisual material produced by missionaries since the early decades of the 20th century as part of their adventure of proclaiming and spreading the Gospel in all parts of the world. A heritage quietly accumulated over the past decades, it urgently needs to be preserved from oblivion and the ravages of time, as it can be a valuable resource for the present and future of apostolic work.
On Thursday, November 20, missionary cinema and the measures taken to preserve, rediscover, and enhance its unexplored richness were the focus of an event held at the historic Palazzo de Propaganda Fide, the heart of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Mission. The event centered on the presentation of the book “Cinema e missione. Fonti audiovisive e storia delle missioni cattoliche” .
“The missionaries who took up the camera,” said Archbishop Samuele Sangalli, Adjunct Secretary of the Dicastery for Missions, in his opening remarks at the presentation, “left us not only images, but visions: visions of faith, hope, and fraternity.” “Cinema and audiovisual sources,” added Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, President of the Foundation “Memorie Audiovisive del Cattolicesimo” , in his introductory remarks, “are privileged instruments for telling the story of the beauty of faith, the devotion of missionaries, and the richness of cultures encountered.”
This book arose from a desire to explore the role that cinema and audiovisual media have played, and continue to play, in the history of missionary activities. It is the result of research and collaboration among scholars, archivists, and missionaries, which Viganò himself describes as “pioneering,” and which also involved the Vatican Apostolic Library, the Historical Archive of Propaganda Fide. This work culminated in an international conference held in October 2024 at the Casina Pio IV in the Vatican.
The volume presented at the Palazzo de Propaganda Fide contains the contributions to this international conference. However, the editors see it primarily as an interim step, a milestone on a path that must be continued to document the significance of missionary cinema for the Church’s apostolic work and, above all, the concrete and urgent need to preserve a fragile, scattered, and endangered audiovisual heritage.
A treasure in danger
The essays collected in this volume, to which the speakers referred, provide an impressive “map” of the wealth of audiovisual sources of missionary origin and significance: from the films of the Xaverians and the Salesians, the newsreels of “San Paolo Film,” to the photo archives of Fides Agency and the audiovisual legacy of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions; from the films of the Canadian Jesuits to those documenting the missionary work of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Congo.
During the presentation, two short segments were shown: one on missionary work in Alaska and the other in the Congo .
In his contribution, Sergio Palagiano of the General Archives of the Society of Jesus also pointed to the fragility and perishability of most of the media used to store audiovisual sources, such as cellulose nitrate-based films, which are not only extremely unstable and flammable under certain conditions, but can also cause explosions. At the same time, the desired and urgently needed digitization of missionary film material requires considerable financial and technological resources, while there is a general lack of investment. “Missionary cinema, like any audiovisual document,” Dario Edoardo Viganò had emphasized in this regard, “is fragile, scattered, and often uncatalogued. Its preservation is not merely a technical task, but an ethical act, a form of caring for the Church’s memory.”
“Apostolic Cinema”
The films of missionaries—as Gianluca Della Maggiore, professor of Film, Photography, Television, and New Media at the Uninettuno Telematic University, pointed out in his presentation—have often been relegated to the conceptual realm of “amateur cinema,” “devotional craftsmanship,” or church anecdotes. While the new historiographical categories that have emerged in recent times rightfully place missionary cinema in the category of “useful cinema,” a cinema “not created to be seen at festivals or in large commercial cinemas, but to be experienced and discussed in communities, parishes, and oratories.” “A cinema that does not seek applause, but conversion, sharing, and communion,” emphasizes Della Maggiore, who proposed the term “Apostolic Cinema” to describe the use of audiovisual production methods “that convey fidelity to the Church’s teachings. A cinema that does not merely represent, but rather invites, educates, and evangelizes.”
Missionary cinema, he added, can be considered “the beating heart of Apostolic Cinema. Because of its temporal depth—more than a century of history. Because of its geographical scope—all continents, all cultures. And because, due to its theological, anthropological, and ethnographic depth, it is a cinema that documents, interprets, and constructs the encounter and, at times, the clash between the Gospel and cultures.”
A heritage to invest in the present
The treasure of “missionary cinema”— as suggested by the remarks heard during the presentation—is not a static legacy, not material for nostalgic reminiscence of the past. It also possesses potential for the present and future of missionary work in the world. “It is our task today,” said Archbishop Sangalli, “to honor this heritage, to make it accessible, and to place it at the service of the New Evangelization.” Young people, seminarians, catechists, and men and women religious—the Adjunct Secretary of the Dicastery for Mission added at the beginning of the book’s presentation—“can find here not only a source of knowledge, but also an invitation to reflect on mission with creativity, passion, and an open-minded view of the world.”
Missionary cinema, Monsignor Viganò insisted, “should no longer be considered a marginal, amateur, or residual object, but rather a significant, widespread, and stratified body of work that deserves to be studied using the tools of cultural history, pragmatic semiotics, ‘visual culture,’ and the theology of communication.”
The Dicastery for Mission as “sponsor” and photos by Fides News Agency
The book—and its presentation in the historic Palazzo de Propaganda Fide overlooking Rome’s Piazza di Spagna—also provided an opportunity to recall the role of the Dicastery for Mission as a “crossroads of production, exchange, and reflection” in connection with missionary Cinema.
Flavio Belluomini, archivist of the Historical Archives of Propaganda Fide, presented the contents of the essay by researcher Steven Stergar, who, in the presented volume, reconstructs the often previously unpublished contacts between Propaganda Fide and international film productions.
“The Congregation,” emphasized Father Belluomini, “understood how to utilize new means of communication, including film and photography, both for learning about the world and its various missionary contexts, and for evangelization.”
Stergar’s contribution to the book, Belluomini explained, illuminates in particular the Congregation’s interest in missionary cinema and its commitment to its promotion, analyzing especially the period of the pontificate of Pius XII. In February 1952, as Stergar recounts, citing several emblematic episodes, Cardinal Prefect Fumasoni Biondi wrote to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Trade requesting the Xaverians’ assistance in bringing the film “Le Campane di Nagasaki” to Italy, as it was considered valuable for publicizing the missionaries’ apostolic work.
“Subsequently,” Belluomini continues, the Congregation also approached Deputy Giulio Andreotti for support for two film productions “permitted by current legislation” and which “these educational, instructional, and informative productions of missionary work deserve.”
In his contribution—as well as in his essay published in the book—Belluomini also discussed at length the value of Fides Agency Photographic Collection, housed in the Historical Archives of Propaganda Fide.
Fides, the first missionary news agency, was founded in 1927 within Propaganda Fide as “a means to learn about and publicize the missions.” Photographs soon acquired a leading role in this function.
Photographs from the missions were offered to other newspapers and subscribers of “Fides Foto,” which remained active until the 1980s. Today, these photographs represent “a valuable source for the history of the Dicastery, for studies in missiology, mission history, and church history, as well as for anthropology, ethnography, and the history of peoples.” According to Belluomini, they are also “an important source to understand the development of the sensibilities that inspired the missionaries’ actions and the way they interacted with the local populations.”
Even Fides Photographic Collection – the archivist of the Historical Archive of Propaganda Fide pointed out –”before being offered to scholars, requires a preliminary inventory. This inventory, in order to identify and maintain the archival link, will need to compare the different types of material preserved and, at the same time, pay attention to the Fides News Agency bulletin.”
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