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Catholic Encyclopedia
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The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published by The Encyclopedia Press. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and it was completed in April 1914. It was designed "to give its readers full and authoritative information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine."
encyclopedia was designed to serve the Roman Catholic Church, excluding information which has no relation to the Church and explaining matters from the point of view of the official Catholic doctrine, as it stood during the pontificate of Pius X.
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Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to today as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published by The Encyclopedia Press. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and it was completed in April 1914. It was designed "to give its readers full and authoritative information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine."
Intent
The encyclopedia was designed to serve the Roman Catholic Church, excluding information which has no relation to the Church and explaining matters from the point of view of the official Catholic doctrine, as it stood during the pontificate of Pius X. It records the accomplishments of Catholics and some others in nearly all intellectual and professional pursuits, including artists, educators, poets and scientists. While more limited than other general encyclopedias, it was far broader in scope than previous efforts at comprehensive Catholic encyclopedias, which had studied only internal Church affairs.
It also offers in-depth portrayals of historical and philosophical ideas, persons and events, from the Roman Catholic point-of-view. On issues that divide Catholicism from other Churches and Protestant ecclesial communities, the text consistently presents matters from the Catholic point of view. Since the encyclopedia was first undertaken in 1913, some of its entries are not up-to-date, either with respect to the secular domain or to the Catholic ecclesiastical world. In particular it predates the creation of the Vatican City State and the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which introduced many significant changes in Catholic practice.
History
The writing of the encyclopedia began on January 11, 1905 under the supervision of five editors:
The editors, all situated in the United States, had their first editorial meeting at the office of The Messenger, on West 16th Street, New York City. The text received a Nihil Obstat ("nothing hinders") from an official censor Remy Lafort on November 1, 1908 and an Imprimatur ("let it be printed") from John Cardinal Farley, who was Archbishop of New York at the time. This review process was presumably accelerated by the reuse of older authorized publications. In addition to frequent informal conferences and constant communication by letters, the editors subsequently held 134 formal meetings to consider the plan, scope and progress of the work, culminating in publication on April 19, 1913. A supplement was published in 1922.
There was controversy over the presence of the Catholic Encyclopedia in public libraries with nativist protests that this violated the separation of church and state, including a successful appeal in Bellville.
The encyclopedia was later updated under the auspices of The Catholic University of America and a 17-volume New Catholic Encyclopedia was first published in 1967, and then in 2002.
Internet version
Under United States copyright law, all works published in the United States before 1923 are in the public domain. In 1993, Kevin Knight, then a 26-year-old resident of Denver, Colorado, was inspired, during the visit of Pope John Paul II to that city for World Youth Day, to launch a project to publish the 1913 edition of the encyclopedia on the Internet. Knight founded the website to house the undertaking. Volunteers from the United States, Canada, France and Brazil helped in the transcription of the original material. The site went online in 1995 and transcription efforts stopped in 1997.
In 2007 published an derived from page scans, (with complete article text, full-sized page scans, , , etc.) thus avoiding problems of missing articles and transcription errors found on other sites.
For those both inside and outside the USA, in addition to full-article text, access to page scans is provided by Catholic Answers' site:
The 1922 supplement to the Encyclopedia is also in the public domain, but as of 2007 has not been placed on-line. The New Catholic Encyclopedia is available online at some libraries.
The scanned copies of it are also available on Google Books, which is not accessible for people outside the USA.
- Supplement I, Vol 17 of the 1922 supplement is available here:
- Supplementary volume of 1918:
See also
External links
- at Catholic.com
- 100% of all articles
- accurate article text (no transcription errors)
- plus full-scale page scans
- Map Gallery (color images)
- Art Gallery (including full-page color plates, photos, illustrations, etc.)
- Article, Title, and Scan Search
- on New Advent (easy search, also offers this in CD form)
- on Catholicity (search via www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com)
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