Friday, Mar. 17, 1967
A Modern Encyclopedia
The first new English-language Catholic encyclopedia in over half a century is a bookmaker's spectacular. Published this week by McGraw-Hill* and edited by scholars at the Catholic University of America, the New Catholic Encyclopedia was seven years in preparation, took $4,000,000 to produce. It will cost $550 to acquire the set -- and may well be worth it. The 15 volumes contain 15,350 pages, 7,500 illustrations, 15 million words, 17,000 articles ranging from "A Cappella" to "Zwinglianism."
The new reference work supersedes the venerable, outdated Catholic Encyclopedia, published between 1907 and 1914. The differences between the two are a measure of how far the church has moved in 50 years. Produced at a time when the church was troubled by the Modernist heresy, the old encyclopedia was conservative and defensive in tone, highly critical of Protestantism. By contrast, many of the 4,800 scholars who contributed to the new encyclopedia are non-Catholics. The managing editor, Father John Whalen of Catholic U., insists that authors were picked solely for their knowledgeability rather than for their faith. The article on Jewish theological education, for example, was written by Rabbi Louis Finkelstein, chancellor of Jewish Theological Seminary, while Editor Erwin Canham of the Christian Science Monitor wrote about Christian Science. Lutheran Theologian Jaroslav Pelikan of Yale served as consultant for the articles on Protestantism, which display a new sympathy for once-deprecated figures like Calvin and Luther.
Transignification. The New Catholic Encyclopedia includes reports on many subjects that were ticked off in a sentence or two in the old edition--contraception, for example, was barely mentioned in the entry on marriage. The new reference book contains an eight-column treatise on the subject by Notre Dame Law Professor John T. Noonan Jr., a member of the pontifical birth-control commission. His article, like many others, does not simply reflect traditional views. Noonan suggests that the church's position developed in response to historical challenges, and can there fore change in the light of new conditions. The articles on the Eucharist in clude an explanation of the controversial new "transignification" theories some Dutch theologians.
One unanswered question is how current can an encyclopedia be in a Roman Catholic Church that is in the midst of continuing turmoil and flux. Father Whalen admits the problem and that more than 1,000 entries had to be changed as a result of decrees enacted by the Second Vatican Council. To stay up to date, the editors hope to issue periodic supplements similar to those put out by the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
* Which in 1965 brought out the Catholic Encyclopedia for School and Home in twelve volumes, intended chiefly for children.
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