| I used to enjoy "A Catholic Dictionary" -a 1960 or so edition-, so, I was enthousiast to know there was a newer edition... but when I received it and start to read it, it has been a deception. Not a single mention of the II Vatican Council, for instance! It is just the same edition, page by page and letter by letter. In the entrance "Mexico, Catholic Church in" they say my country has 20 million inhabitants, but we are more tan 100 million! Why didn't someone, at the editorial house, revised it? The thelogical truth doesn't change, but our comprehension of it does, and it has been a lot of advance in ecumenism, the limbo, the law of the Church, etc. A Catholic Dictionary has almost just historical interest... if you are not interested in the last 50 years. |
| While engaged in some research on a project which included some comparisons of and contrasts between certain religious practices, I came across this dictionary, formerly called an encyclopaedic dictionary (evidently the name was changed due to a conflict in titles with another publication). It proved to be useful for my purposes as well as of interest in general. I found, for example, that Catholicism, along with many tribal and/or primitive religions (indigenous American peoples, native African cultures are two examples) had very specific rites of exorcism, which is defined in __A CATHOLIC DICTIONARY__ as "the driving out of evil spirits in cases of demonical possession." There is a detailed description of the rite of exorcism, including specific prayers and sections of the Bible to be read in the presence of the possessed, the order in which they should be read, and the training and qualifications of an exorcist. In other cultures, what we, for want of a more precise term, often call witch doctors, or more accurately shamans, perform their own prescribed rites to drive off, or to ward off, evil spirits. While the details of the rituals are different, they too are prescribed and their intent is similar. The 5,000+ entries cover a great amount of ground, ranging from categories with which most of us are familiar, to some very obscure, but often interesting ones. An example of the latter follows. KING'S EVIL: The Kings of France and England have been granted the power to cure scrofula (the main symptom of which is a swelling of the neck glands), by touching the afflicted. The last kings to perform this act of touching are said to be Henry IX of England and Charles X of France. (For more details, see the subject dictionary.) For me, this dictionary has proved useful both for finding very specific information and for randomly picking a page or two and learning something old that is new to me. |
| Finally back in print! (1961 edition). A goldmine of information with over 5,000 entries! Clear, brief, authoritative, easy to use. Facts, definitions, clear distinctions and the Church's traditional teaching - without speculation, trendy opinions, compromise or dissent. This book belongs in every Catholic home, school and parish! The best we have ever seen |
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