THE MAKING AND REMAKING OF CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIAS

 The 15-volume Catholic Encyclopedia published 1907-14 in New York was for more than fifty years the most significant Catholic reference work in English, but by mid-century it had begun to show its age. The Catholic Commission for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs (CCICA), an association of Catholic scholars founded in 1946, recognizing that the Encyclopedia needed to be brought up to date, began to explore how it might be revised or even be replaced by an entirely new work. When a member of the CCICA, Monsignor William J. McDonald, became the rector of the Catholic University of America in 1958, plans for The New Catholic Encyclopedia began to take shape. The NCE, a major achievement, replaced the old CE as the standard reference for things Catholic, but many of the entries were already dated when it came off the press in 1967 because, between the planning and the printing, the Second Vatican Council took place. The four supplementary volumes published between 1972-1995 reported on significant developments within the Church and religious studies but in the end the supplements proved to be a patchwork effort. Even before the last of the supplements appeared it was to the evident to the editors if not to the publisher that a major overhaul was in order. Furthermore, the growth in electronic publishing raised new issues about the feasibility of another print-edition and the future of the NCE itself.

 
The Making of the Catholic Encyclopedia

 The most accessible account of the making of the Catholic Encyclopedia (CE) appears on the Internet [ www.newadvent.org ]. It describes in general terms the early planning that began two years before actual work began in 1905 with the formation of a five-man Board of Editors. The biographical entries in the New Catholic Encyclopedia give further information about each member. Charles G. Herbermann, long-time professor of Latin and librarian at the College of the City of New York, was editor-in-chief.  Condé B. Pallen who had considerable experience as an editor is credited with organizing the Board; he served as managing editor for the duration of the project. The other members were Edward A. Pace, professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, Thomas J. Shahan, then professor of Church History and later rector at the Catholic University of America, and John J. Wynne, S.J., editor of The Messsenger (later re-christened America), who is credited with hatching the idea of an international work of reference on the Catholic Church. For two years the Board met twice a month planning and mapping out the details of the project; and then, until April, 1913, they met once a month to monitor the progress of the work. In all they held 134 formal meetings.

 In order to publicize the work and gain financial backing, in February 1906, the editors issued a pamphlet describing its scope and aims.  AThe Catholic Encyclopedia,@ it said, Aproposes to give its readers full and authoritative information on . . . what the Church teaches and has taught; what she has done and is still doing for the highest welfare of mankind.@ The pamphlet explained that it omits facts and information that have no bearing on the Church, but it is not exclusively a church Encyclopedia, nor is it limited to the ecclesiastical sciences and the doings of churchmen. It records all that Catholics have done, not only in behalf of charity and morals, but also for the intellectual and artistic development of mankind.  It chronicles what Catholic artists, educators, poets, scientists and men of action have achieved in their several provinces.

 The pamphlet also had an apologetic note.

 The editors are fully aware that there is no specifically Catholic science . . . but, when it is commonly asserted that Catholic principles are an obstacle to scientific research, it seems not only proper but needful to register what and how much Catholics have contributed to every department of knowledge.

 Although the Encyclopedia was intended primarily for an English-speaking audience, the editors solicited contributions from scholars and Aprominent writers on the Continent of Europe.@ The catalogue of authors list 1452, representing 43 countries. Experts translated the manuscripts when they were submitted in a language other than English. The editors wanted to present Anot only precise statements of what the Church has defined, but also an impartial record of different views of acknowledged authority on all disputed questions, national, political or factional.@ The Encyclopedia carries the imprimatur of the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Farely. The cardinal delegated to the editors the responsibility of acting as ecclesiastical censors for the first two volumes, but beginning with volume three, the censor is listed as Remy Lafort, S.T.D. The change may have been dictated by the charge that some contributors to the early volumes were tainted with modernism.

 The editors also served on the Board of Directors of the Robert Appleton Company, a publishing house incorporated in February, 1905 whose sole purpose was to produce the Encyclopedia. (In 1912 its title was changed to The Encyclopedia Press.)  The first two volumes were published in 1907, and subsequent volumes followed on the average of two to three a year. Volume 15 (TOURN-ZWIRNER), published in 1913, contained a list of errata in the previous volumes); the Index Volume, with supplementary articles, appeared in 1914. Subsequently the editors published The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers containing the biographies of the contributors and others who participated in the production of the work.  In 1922 The Encyclopedia Press, Inc. published a supplement that updated a number of articles and reported new developments. It seemed to have been intended as the first in a series of supplements and year-books but no other appeared.

 The 1907-1913 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia is the one found on the Internet. An article by Mark Dittman and Tim Drake in the National Catholic Register (July 20-26, 1997) reports how Pope John Paul=s visit to Denver at the time of World Youth Day in 1993 inspired Kevin Knight, then 26 years old, to establish the NewAdvent.org, a Catholic supersite on the World Wide Web. Beginning 1995 he enlisted volunteers from all over the world to transcribe articles from the CE, by then in the public domain and no longer covered by copyright law, in order to make them available to the Internet audience. At the beginning of 2000 all but a handful of articles in the 15 volume-set were available to anyone who accessed www.newadvent.org

 Knight must be commended for the zeal, imagination and hard-work that have given the Catholic Encyclopedia a new lease on life. Many of the historical articles continue to be an invaluable source of information, and the set itself is a unique resource for research on the Church at the end of the nineteenth century. Theologians, philosophers, historians and other scholars speak for themselves.  Their thought is not filtered through the lens of later developments. The approach to theology, philosophy and church history reflected the conventional wisdom in the Church at the beginning of the twentieth century. Articles on biblical studies, ecclesiology and sacramental practice stand on their own, apart from later developments at the Second Vatican Council. The description of precepts and practices reflects the Church=s discipline before the Code of Canon Law came into being in 1917. The electronic version of Encyclopedia on the Internet conforms to the original text as it appears in the volumes published between 1907-1913.  A random check of the entries indicates that articles in the 1922 Supplement have not been inserted nor are the errata cited in Volume 15 corrected.

 
The Making of the New Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Commission for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, which included many faculty members of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., proposed that the university collaborate in a new edition and updating of the Catholic Encyclopedia. The rector at the time, Bishop Patrick J. McCormick (d. 1953), did not encourage the idea. McCormick who had come to the university in 1910 to teach the history of education  was there during the time that Bishop Shahan and his colleague Edward A. Pace were bringing the CE to completion. He was aware of how massive an undertaking it would be did not feel the time ripe for it in light of the university=s other commitments and problems. It is likely that he also remembered that the Encyclopedia had become a bone-of-contention in the modernist controversy.

When Monsignor William J. McDonald became rector of the University in 1957 the idea surfaced again. His formal inauguration on April 16, 1958 was the occasion for a meeting of the university=s Board of Trustees at which McDonald reported that the project of a New Catholic Encyclopedia had been revived. The sequence of events that followed is chronicled by Monsignor James A. Magner in volume III of My Faces & Places. Magner, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, held a number of administrative posts at CUA 1948-69 that involved him in the business and managerial affairs of the New Catholic Encyclopedia. (My Faces & Places, is a personal journal,  privately printed, containing entertaining accounts of many events of interest to U.S. Church historians in the years 1901-81). 

The Reverend William J. Rooney, a faculty member in the English department and executive director of the Catholic Commission for Intellectual and Cultural Affairs, sought McDonald=s support for a new Catholic encyclopedia. It is likely that Rooney, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, is the one who told McDonald of Cardinal Stritch=s interest in the project. The Trustees agreed that the University and the CCICA should work together on the project, and directed that the executive committee of the Board should study all phases of the project, especially how it would be financed.

At some point the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company had approached Eugene P. Willging, Director of Libraries at Catholic University, about a new encyclopedia based on a translation of the Enciclopedia Catholic Italiana published a few years previously. After Rector McDonald broached the subject with the Trustees, McGraw-Hill indicated their interest in publishing the work. After further discussion, the university entered into an arrangement with McGraw-Hill whereby the rector would appoint an editorial advisory board of distinguished Catholic scholars to formulate policy and plan the Encyclopedia, and an editor-in-chief who, with a full time staff, would manage the work. The rector chaired the editorial board, served as the chief executive officer, responsible for the overall editorial phase, and assumed the title editor-in-chief for himself.   AIn effect,@ Magner notes, Athis eliminated the CCICA from leadership or even partnership on the project,@ and resulted in initial resentment on the part of some members of the Commission.

For its part McGraw-Hill agreed to underwrite the editorial cost and the production of the Encyclopedia, then estimated at $2,000,000.  McGraw-Hill further agreed to settle all obligations and liabilities stemming from any claims that might be made by the John Gilmary Shea Society of New York which had come to own the copyright, the copper plates, and several sets the original Catholic Encyclopedia as well as copies of the supplement and the Catholic Dictionary based on the CE. The demands of the Society were settled through the good offices of Cardinal Spellman who then chaired CUA=s Board of Trustees. Under the terms of the contract signed in June, 1959 McGraw-Hill became the publisher of the New Catholic Encyclopedia and the University was recognized as the proprietor and holder of the copyright.

The parties estimated that the work--14 volumes, each with one million words, plus an index volume--would take five years. McDonald first appointed an editorial committee to recommend an organizational structure, identify the entries, and prepare an over-all plan by the end of 1959.  In January, 1961 the rector reported to the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees that everything was moving forward on schedule. The production timetable set by McGraw-Hill called for an average of 25,000 words of copy to be delivered each day for twenty-eight months beginning November 1, 1961. The printer was to complete composition by April 1, 1964 and the printing and binding were to be finished by the end of May, 1964.  In fact, work fell farther behind schedule with each succeeding month as cost-over runs increased and financial concerns threatened the outcome of the project.

Magner=s account of the making of the New Catholic Encyclopedia makes it clear that the editor-in-chief was unaware of the magnitude and complexity of the work. Early in the planning process it became clear, in Magner=s words Athat anything like a revision or even appreciable salvage of  the old Catholic Encyclopedia material was out of the question.@  Meanwhile the editor-in-chief continued to recruit area editors and to add to the staff while McGraw-Hill Abecame increasingly apprehensive about its investment.@ Drastic measures were called for. At the insistence of Archbishop Patrick O=Boyle, the Chancellor of the University, the Reverend John P. Whalen was appointed Director of Editorial Operations, and in effect became the CEO of the project. Finally in the spring, 1967 the New Catholic Encyclopedia  rolled off the presses and was ready for distribution. The first printing numbered 26,000 sets, priced at $550 each.  The masthead lists William J. McDonald (named auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C. in 1964) as Editor-in-Chief. and James A. Magner as Associate Editor-in-Chief. Magner when speaking of  John P. Whalen, listed as Managing Editor, and Dr. Martin R.P. McGuire, listed as Senior Editor, leaves no doubt that Athis great work would not have been accomplished without their unremitting zeal and intelligent guidance.@

 The Preface found in the first volume states that it contains Aabout 17,000 separate articles . . . written by some 4,800 scholars , . . . men and women, Catholic and non-Catholic, from all parts of the world.@ The Preface describes the scope and contents. The articles give priority to the Western Church, while not neglecting the Churches in the East. While they focus principally on Roman Catholicism, many attend to the history and particular traditions of the Eastern Churches and the Churches of the Protestant Reformation, and other ecclesial communities.

 In addition to providing information on the doctrine, organization, and history of Christianity  over the centuries, the New Catholic Encyclopedia includes information about persons, institutions, cultural phenomena, religions, philosophies, scientific developments, and social movements that have affected the Catholic Church from within and without. In proposing Ato meet the need for an authoritative work of reference for the English-speaking world,@ the NCE=s aim was to be abreast of the state of knowledge and to reflect Athe outlook and interests of the second half of the 20^th century.@ For example, it recognized the growing importance of psychology and psychiatry and sought to give them Athe full attention they deserve.@ Similarly, Athe revolutionary progress made in the social sciences since 1900 is reflected in articles devoted to the fields of anthropology, economics, and sociology,@ and the Encyclopedia made every effort Ato indicate the present state of knowledge in the physical and biological sciences.@ In short, the New Catholic Encyclopedia aspired to serve as a general  encyclopedia with a broad range of articles, some of interest to researchers, some of interest to inquisitive readers. The statement in the Preface outlining the NCE=s approach to literature is a good description of the scope and spirit of the entire work: AThe Encyclopedia does not confine itself strictly to Catholic literature or to Catholic writers but deals with literature on a universal basis from a Catholic point of view, while using literary standards of judgment and evaluation.@

 A distinctive feature of the New Catholic Encyclopedia that enhanced its usefulness is the Index volume. The index for the Catholic Encyclopedia did not appear until almost two years after the final volume of text was published. The editors of the NCE were determined to publish the 15-volume set, index included, at the same time. They secured the services of Sister M. Claudia Carlen, I.H.M., librarian of Marygrove College, Detroit, Michigan. She and her staff worked from the master lists and galley proofs, but it was their pioneering use of an IBM computer that made it possible for the detailed index to be completed on schedule. The Library of Congress underwrote a substantial part of the cost in exchange for sharing in the pilot experience.

 
The Need for Supplements

The agreement entered into by McGraw-Hill and the Catholic University of America in 1963 (it superceded the agreement signed in 1959) recognized that it would be necessary to publish supplements from time to time if the New Catholic Encyclopedia were to stay abreast of developments in the Church. The parties to the contract did not, however, anticipate that a supplement would be in order as soon as the original 15-volume set rolled off the press. They had not figured on the far reaching reforms and new directions set by the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II  had gotten underway in October, 1962, about the time the initial planning for the NCE was complete. Few entries reflect the spirit or report on issues of the Council, but the editors did  insert some reference to them in the later volumes (e.g., s.v., SACRAMENTS, THEOLOGY OF) and made room for a comprehensive report by Robert Trisco in volume 14, s.v. VATICAN COUNCIL II.

Not long after the New Catholic Encyclopedia appeared on the market McGraw-Hill made a corporate decision to sell off its rights to the NCE, the Catholic Encyclopedia for Home and School and other encyclopedias (e.g., the Encyclopedia of World Biography). In 1973 Publisher=s Guild acquired the rights to the publication, marketing and distribution of the NCE which the Guild in turn assigned to Jack Heraty & Associates, Inc. The Catholic University of America continued to have the rights and responsibility for the editorial content, and under the proprietorship of Jack Heraty & Asociates produced four supplements to the Encyclopedia.

David Eggenberger, formerly with McGraw-Hill, is listed as the executive editor of the first supplementary Volume 16 (the supplements continued the numeration of the original set) which covered developments in the Church in the years 1967-1974. It was volume 17, the supplement with the subtitle, AChange in the Church,@ that finally appraised the significance of the Second Vatican Council and reported the changes it engendered.  Edited by Thomas C. O=Brien, it reports the new directions in theology and church discipline, especially the liturgy, in the post-conciliar years under Pope Paul VI who died as the volume was ready to go to press. Berard L Marthaler (the author of this essay) edited supplementary volumes 18 and 19. The first focused on events of the years 1978-1988, and the second on the years 1989-1995. It was while working on these two volumes that I began to think that producing supplements to the NCE is like applying band-aids to a condition that called for surgery. Much of the material in the original 15-volume set had become dated, especially with regard to articles in biblical studies that had not taken into account the Council=s Constitution on Revelation, Dei Verbum and the Pontifical Biblical Commission=s  Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels of 1964. It was while working on the second that I began to think that the future of the New Catholic Encyclopedia, if it is to remain abreast of current developments, lay in some form of electronic version that can be expanded, revised, and edited more easily and more economically than a print edition.

The Remaking of the New Catholic Encyclopedia

Ultimately Jack Heraty & Associates came to the same conclusion. The firm did not have the resources to underwrite a thorough revision of the Encyclopedia  and ended by selling the rights it had acquired from McGraw-Hill to the Gale Group, based in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Gale began by doing a market survey that found a strong desire on the part of librarians and users for some form of electronic version of the NCE and at the same time indicated that there are still many people interested in a print edition. Consequently Gale made the decision, in concert with the Catholic University of America Press, to proceed first by undertaking an extensive revision and updating of the 1967 edition and, at a later date, produce an electronic version in some form--on-line or on CD Rom.

Like the original edition, the revised edition (as currently envisaged) will consist of 15 volumes B 14 volumes of text and an index volume. New entries will be added, some old entries dropped. Many articles will be totally redone, many more will be reworked and updated, and material from the supplements will be incorporated where appropriate. The publication date is set for late in 2001.

 The revised New Catholic Encyclopedia sets the same standards for scholarship, objectivity and comprehensive coverage found in the earlier edition, but unlike the earlier edition it does not try attempt to serve as a general reference work with articles on every subject from AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS to NUCLEIC ACIDS, and QUANTUM THEORY. In order to make room for new material, the editors have had to sharpen its focus. As a result, highly technical discussion of biblical texts and languages is left to specialized Bible commentaries, and the lengthy histories of literature for each country found in the 1967 edition have been omitted.  A number of entries dealing with medieval abbots are being dropped to make space for contemporary figures. Like every encyclopedia the NCE does not pretend to (nor does it seek to) transcend the limitations placed on it by the time and place in which it is written. The revised text continues to chronicle the history of Christianity and Church from a number of vantage points but with a sensitivity to ecumenical concerns and inter-faith dialogue that are characteristic of the time. The revised text continues to give priority to events and individuals who have shaped the Church in North America and admits to a Eurocentric bias in reporting on ideas, culture and art, but it makes an effort to expand its coverage of developments in South America, Africa and Asia.

 
A AJubilee Volume@- the Wojtyla Pontificate

Whatever must be said about the influence (or lack thereof) of the Second Vatican Council on the editors and writers who produced the New Catholic Encyclopedia in 1960s, the editors of the revised edition are very much aware that their work is being done in an era dominated by the person and policies of Pope John Paul II. John Paul has used Vatican II as a reference pointB the lodestarB for his pontificate while at the same time guiding the bark of Peter into uncharted waters. He is guided by the Second Vatican Council but, as George Weigel says of him, his goal is Ato claim the future.@ Thus, in revising the NCE the new editors judged it worthwhile, even important, that they reflect long and hard on the Wojtyla pontificate not so much to report its accomplishments but to understand how it has shaped issues and established priorities.

At the urging of the publishers the editors compiled a AJubilee Volume@ that is something of a propaedia to the Encyclopedia itself. It chronicles the events of the first twenty-plus years of Pope John Paul=s papacy (1978-2000), summarizes his encyclicals and magisterial pronouncements, and gives biographical information on churchmen  and others who figured prominently in the events of those years. Most important, the Jubilee Volume contains a series of thematic essays that attempt to define John Paul=s legacy and interpret the agenda that he bequeaths to Catholic Christians at the threshold of the new century. The essays on John Paul=s personalist philosophy, the theological anthropology latent in his papal pronouncements and literary works, his social teachings, his ecumenical concerns, and the importance he puts on inter-faith dialogue and inculturation, are important to an understanding of the religious, intellectual and cultural matrix that gave birth to the revision. The editors are very much aware that every volume in the revised edition of the New Catholic Encyclopedia will carry the imprint of the Wojtyla papacy.

The Jubilee Volume  published in the fall of 2000 was well received. When it underwent a second printing in the spring of 2001 the many typos, a by-product of modern technology, that marred the first were corrected. Meanwhile as work goes forward on the revised edition, as old articles are being updated and new ones written, the publisher has undertaken to code the data-entries as a necessary first step toward an electronic version that will ensure a continuous updating of a valuable reference tool.