Popoli (magazine)

Towards the end of the year 1914[1] the process for the publication of the fortnightly Le Missioni della Compagnia di Gesù was set in motion in Venice, thanks to the initiative of the Jesuit Giuseppe Petazzi. With the blessing of Pope Benedict XV the first issue was edited in January 1915, "at a time when all souls are saddened by the gloomy outlook of the war that is tearing through Europe", as the editor-in-chief wrote in his first letter to the readers. The magazine's aim was to "tell and promote the great work of the missions", with a specific reference to the Italian Jesuits. Since the very beginning it stood out for the wide use of images and for its international vision, not without a certain taste for the exotic typical of the time. After becoming a monthly publication in 1943, in 1954 the magazine changed its format from "note-book" to a bigger size – similar to the present-day one and printed in multiple copies.

The year 1970 saw two main changes: the co-operation between the Italian Jesuits and the Italian headquarters of Pontifical Mission Societies, which gave birth to the new magazine Popoli e Missioni and the use of colour photos. The new magazine widened its horizon and began to adopt a more global approach to the whole landscape of evangelisation.

In 1987 the history of the magazine reached its third stage: after the co-operation with the Pontifical Mission Societies had come to an end, the magazine adopted the current title, Popoli. In 1993 the first lay correspondent joined the editing team. The magazine paid increasingly more attention to the imbalances between the North and the South of the world, following in the footsteps of Giuseppe Bellucci (editor-in-chief from 1976) who used to wonder: "are we heading for a new type of exploitation, or for a fairer world?" More and more Popoli was taking on the role of information magazine besides that of a monthly mission publication. In 1998 Father Bellucci left the magazine that he had led for 22 years and in 1999, after Father Giustino Béthaz's brief stint as editor-in-chief, he was succeeded by Father Bartolomeo Sorge, former editor of both Civiltà Cattolica and Aggiornamenti Sociali. In 2006 Stefano Femminis became editor-in-chief, the first layman to lead a Jesuit magazine in Italy. In keeping with its international profile, Popoli has in the last few years paid increasingly more attention to the dynamics of immigration in Italy and the transformation of a multi-ethnic society. From 2010 the magazine is also available online, with a wider range of contents and articles than its paper equivalent, while in 2011 Popoli was the first Catholic magazine in Italy to develop an iPad application.[2]