Catholic Encyclopedia

Not to be confused with New Catholic Encyclopedia.

The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church^[1] (also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia)^[2] is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States designed to serve the Catholic Church. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index volume in 1914 and later supplementary volumes. It was designed "to give its readers full and authoritative information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine".^[3][4]

Cover of the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1

The Catholic Encyclopedia was published by the Robert Appleton Company (RAC), a publishing company incorporated at New York in February 1905 for the express purpose of publishing the encyclopedia. The five members of the encyclopedia's Editorial Board also served as the directors of the company. In 1912 the company's name was changed to The Encyclopedia Press. Publication of the encyclopedia's volumes was the sole business conducted by the company during the project's lifetime.^[5]

Purpose

 

Robert Appleton

The encyclopedia was designed to serve the Catholic Church, concentrating on information related to the Church and explaining matters from the Catholic point of view. It records the accomplishments of Catholics and others in nearly all intellectual and professional pursuits, including artists, educators, poets and scientists. While more limited in focus than other general encyclopedias, it was far broader in scope than previous efforts at comprehensive Catholic encyclopedias, which covered only internal Church affairs.

It offers in-depth portrayals of historical and philosophical ideas, persons and events, from a Catholic perspective, including issues that divide Catholicism from Protestantism and other faith communities. Since the encyclopedia was first published starting in 1907 and has never been updated (versus the New Catholic Encyclopedia), many of its entries may be out of date either with respect to the wider culture or to the Catholic ecclesiastical world. In particular, it predates the creation of the Vatican City State (1929) and the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), which introduced changes to Catholic practice.

History

The writing of the encyclopedia began on January 11, 1905, under the supervision of five editors:

• Charles G. Herbermann, professor of Latin and librarian of the College of the City of New York
• Edward A. Pace, professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
• Condé B. Pallen, editor
• The Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, professor of Church history at The Catholic University
• The Rev. John J. Wynne, S.J., editor of Messenger of the Sacred Heart

The first edition was initially printed by Robert Appleton Company. The volumes came out sequentially, the first two in 1907 and the last three in 1912:^[6]

Volume	Entries	Year first pub.	Chief editor
1	Aachen–Assize	1907	Charles George Herbermann
2	Assize–Brownr
3	Brow–Clancy	1908
4	Cland–Diocesan
5	Diocese–Fathers	1909
6	Fathers–Gregory
7	Gregory–Infallibility	1910
8	Infamy–Lapparent
9	Laprade–Mass
10	Mass–Newman	1911
11	New Mexico–Philip
12	Philip–Revalidation
13	Revelation–Simon Stock	1912
14	Simony–Tournely
15	Tournon–Zwirner

The editors had their first editorial meeting at the office of The Messenger, on West 16th Street, New York City. The text received a nihil obstat from an official censor, Remy Lafort, on November 1, 1908, and an imprimatur from John Murphy Farley, Archbishop of New York. 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 first supplement was published in 1922; a second supplement in nine loose-leaf sections was published by The Gilmary Society between 1950 and 1958.

In 1912, a special completely illustrated, commemorative volume was awarded to those patrons who contributed to the start of the enterprise by buying multiple encyclopedia sets early on.^[7]

There was controversy over the presence of the Catholic Encyclopedia in public libraries in the United States with nativist protests that this violated the separation of church and state, including a successful appeal in Belleville, New Jersey.^[8]

The encyclopedia was later updated under the auspices of The Catholic University of America and the New Catholic Encyclopedia was first published in 1967, and then in 2002.

Authors and sources

The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers states that:

The work is entirely new, and not merely a translation or a compilation from other encyclopedic sources. The editors have insisted that the articles should contain the latest and most accurate information to be obtained from the standard works on each subject.

However, "from standard works" allows that some of the articles from European contributors such as Pierre Batiffol (French) and Johann Peter Kirsch (German) had previously been published in whole or in part in Europe and were translated and edited for the Encyclopedia.^[9] Those who wrote new articles in English include Anthony Maas and Herbert Thurston.

Online versions

Under copyright law of the United States, all works published in the United States before 1928 are in the public domain. In 1993, Kevin Knight, a 26-year-old resident of Denver, Colorado, decided, 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 Web site New Advent to host 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 work ended in 1997.^{[Volumes 1]}

In 2007, Catholic Answers published a watermarked version derived from page scans. This version has since been replaced with a transcription of the Encyclopedia similar to that found at the New Advent site.^{[Volumes 2]} The Catholic Answers transcription, however, is an exact transcription of the original text, whereas the New Advent version at times modernizes certain usages (e.g., using the titles of Old Testament books found in Protestant/Modernist Bibles, such as "1 & 2 Chronicles" and "Obadiah", in place of the Traditionalist Vulgate/Douay–Rheims titles, such as "1 & 2 Paralipomenon" and "Abdias") and Biblical citation formatting (i.e., the Catholic Answers version retains the original's usage of Roman numerals for chapter numbers [e.g., Genesis I,1], while the New Advent version uses Arabic numerals throughout [e.g., Genesis 1:1]).

Other scanned copies of the 1913 Encyclopedia are available on Google Books, at the Internet Archive, and at Wikimedia Commons. Wikisource also hosts a transcription project backed by the scans hosted at Commons.^{[Volumes 3]}

The 1922 supplement to the Encyclopedia is also in the public domain and is available online. The New Catholic Encyclopedia also is available online at some libraries.

See also

• Encyclopaedia Biblica
• The Jewish Encyclopedia
• Lists of encyclopedias
• New Catholic Encyclopedia
• Orthodox Encyclopedia
• Thomas F. Woodlock – a member of the board of directors for the project and contributor of several articles within it

Notes

1. "The Catholic Encyclopedia". New Advent. Retrieved September 6, 2010.
2. "Catholic Encyclopedia". Catholic Answers.

3. Volume	Names	Year first pub.	Wikisource (Incomplete)	Internet Archive	Google Books	Chief editor
   1	Aachen–Assize	1907	Wikisource 1	Internet Archive 1	Google Books 1	Charles George Herbermann
   2	Assize–Brownr		Wikisource 2	Internet Archive 2	Google Books 2
   3	Brow–Clancy	1908	Wikisource 3	Internet Archive 3	Google Books 3
   4	Cland–Diocesan		Wikisource 4	Internet Archive 4	Google Books 4
   5	Diocese–Fathers	1909	Wikisource 5	Internet Archive 5	Google Books 5
   6	Fathers–Gregory		Wikisource 6	Internet Archive 6	Google Books 6
   7	Gregory–Infallibility	1910	Wikisource7	Internet Archive 7	Google Books 7
   8	Infamy–Lapparent		Wikisource 8	Internet Archive 8	Google Books 8
   9	Laprade–Mass		Wikisource 9	Internet Archive 9	Google Books 9
   10	Mass–Newman	1911	Wikisource 10	Internet Archive 10	Google Books 10
   11	New Mexico–Philip		Wikisource 11	Internet Archive 11	Google Books 11
   12	Philip–Revalidation		Wikisource 12	Internet Archive 12	Google Books 12
   13	Revelation–Simon Stock	1912	Wikisource 13	Internet Archive 13	Google Books 13
   14	Simony–Tournely		Wikisource 14	Internet Archive 14	Google Books 14
   15	Tournon–Zwirner		Wikisource 15	Internet Archive 15	Google Books 15
   16	Index	1914	Wikisource 16	Internet Archive 16	Google Books 16
   17	Supplement I	1922	Wikisource 17	Internet Archive 17	Google Books 17
   18	Supplement II				Google Books 18
   19	Supplemental Year Books			Supplemental Year Books 1912–1922

Citations

1. Herberman, Charles G.; et al., eds. (1907). "The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Volume 1: Aachen–Assize. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Title page.
2. "The Original Catholic Encyclopedia". El Cajon, California: Catholic Answers. Retrieved 2011-07-21.^{[permanent dead link]}
3. Preface to the Catholic Encyclopedia
4. . El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers. Archived from the original on May 22, 2010. Retrieved September 6, 2010.
5. "The Making of the Catholic Encyclopedia". The Catholic Encyclopedia and its Makers. New York City: The Encyclopedia Press. 1917. pp. iii–viii. OCLC 748253.
6. . El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers. Archived from the original on September 15, 2010. Retrieved September 6, 2010.
7. "Celledoor Miscellany: Selected Illustrations from the Catholic Encyclopedia". Celledoor.blogspot.com. June 7, 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-04.
8. Separation of Church and State, Hamburger, Philip, Harvard University Press (2002), p. 412.
9. The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers 1917

General bibliography

• Charles B. Herbermann; Edward A. Pace; Conde E. Pallen (1907). The Catholic encyclopedia ; an international work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, discipline and history of the Catholic Church. archive.org. Vol. 14 voll. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Archived from the original on December 28, 2018. Retrieved December 28, 2018.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Catholic Encyclopedia.

 

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

• Catholic Encyclopedia at Catholic Answers
• Catholic Encyclopedia on New Advent
• Catholic Encyclopedia on Catholicity
• Catholic Encyclopedia full text via Hathi Trust