The Original Catholic Encyclopedia

Site News - February 24, 2009

Lent is almost upon us. It is a period of contemplation and preparation for Easter, the primary feast for Catholics worldwide.

Here are some popular articles that touch on this season:

• Quinquagesima - The period of fifty days before Easter.
• Shrovetide - English equivalent of what is known in the greater part of Southern Europe as the Carnival, which marked the beginning of Lent
• Ash Wednesday - The first day of the Lenten fast.
• Lent - Denotes the forty days preceding Easter.
• Fasting - In general, fasting refers to abstinence from food.

• Holy Week - The week which precedes the great festival of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
• Maundy Thursday - Holy Thursday solemnly commemorates the institution of the Eucharist and is the oldest of the observances peculiar to Holy Week.
• Good Friday - The English designation for the day of the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.
• Holy Saturday - In the primitive Church Holy Saturday was known as Great, or Grand, Saturday, Holy Saturday, the Angelic Night, the Vigil of Easter.

• Passion of Jesus Christ in the Gospels - Four separate accounts of the Passion of Our Lord, each of which supplements the others.
• Passion of Jesus Christ in the Early Church - The sufferings of Our Lord, which culminated in His death upon the cross, seem to have been conceived of as one inseparable whole from a very early period.

• Resurrection of Jesus Christ - Christ rising from the dead; and opposing theories
• Easter - Principal feast of the ecclesiastical year.
• Old Easter Customs - Interesting practices and problems from earlier days.
• Date of Easter - Controversies surrounding the timing of this Feast.

Site News - February 23, 2009

Work continues apace here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site.

New Curricula - work is ongoing with several additions in various stages of development.

This week we are releasing:

• Curricula: Civil Law - An examination of how Civil Authority and Civil Law developed with the guidance of the Catholic Church.
• Includes discussion of Natural Law
• Also touches on ancient legal systems in practice during the Old Testament.

Incremental content improvements

• A dozen more complex articles had formatting improvements added.

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Visit us often as we are continually adding new features.

Site News - January 30, 2009

Since the last news update, we have focused on expanding our Curricula offerings:

• Curricula: Church Hierarchy - An examination of how the Catholic Church is organized for the purpose of guiding of man to his eternal salvation.
• Curricula: Art - A survey of how the development of various artistic disiplines occurred within the Church, including painting, architecture, music and sculpture, as well as biographies of the artists themselves.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• More quotes have been pulled from articles and added to the Quotable Catholics feed.
• Quotable Catholics features quotations from Catholics in every walk of life, including not only saints, martyrs, and popes, but also scientists, politicians, soldiers, academics, clergy, kings, and more.
  

Incremental content improvements

• Dozens more complex articles had formatting improvements added.

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Visit us often as we are continually adding new features.

Site News - January 20, 2009

Our new year has started off smartly with some new features here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site.

Our popular Curricula series was expanded again this past week:

• Curricula: Religious Orders - An historical overview of the development of religious orders along with an index of the Catholic Church's major orders.

Saints Index Completion

• We have finished the Index of 1,001 Saints with a final round of patronage and feast day additions.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• A few more quotes have been culled from articles and added to the Quotable Catholics feed.
• Quotable Catholics features quotes from Catholics in every walk of life, including not only saints, martyrs, and popes, but also scientists, politicians, soldiers, academics, clergy, kings, and more.
  

Incremental content improvements

• More formatting and organizational improvements were added to a few more complex articles.

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Visit us often as we are continually adding new features.

Site News - December 30, 2008

End-of-the-year housecleaning has resulted in several improvements to the Catholic Encyclopedia site:

Saints Index Expansion

• Significant additional data has been added to our Index of 1,001 Saints.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• A few more quotes have been culled from articles and added to the Quotable Catholics feed.
• Quotable Catholics features quotes from Catholics in every walk of life, including not only saints, martyrs, and popes, but also scientists, politicians, soldiers, academics, clergy, kings, and more.
  

Incremental content improvements

• More formatting and organizational improvements were added to dozens of complex articles.
• Repairs of reported content issues (minor) were completed.
  

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Visit us often as we are continually adding new features.

Site News - October 28, 2008

Site improvements to the Catholic Encyclopedia site continued this month, with the following new features and enhancements:

Saints Index Expansion

• Additional entries have been added to our Index of 1,001 Saints.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• Even more quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side-column block.
• Quotable Catholics features quotes from Catholics in every walk of life, including not only saints, martyrs, and popes, but also scientists, politicians, soldiers, clergy, kings, and more.
  

Incremental content improvements

• More formatting and organizational improvements were added to dozens of complex articles.
• Repairs of reported content issues (minor) were completed.
  

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Visit us often as we are continually adding new features.

Site News - September 30, 2008

Improvements to the Catholic Encyclopedia site continue to be added, and this week we offer the following new features:

Questions & Discussions Support (login required)

• Available exclusively here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site, registered users can now ask questions and start discussions on particular articles. Just look for the "Ask a Question" (aka "Discuss this article") link at the top and bottom of every article.

E-mail a Friend

• Want to let someone know about a particular article? Just look for the "Send to a Friend" link at the top and bottom of every article.

Saints Index Expansion

• Additional entries have been added to our Index of 1,001 Saints.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• Even more quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side-column block.
• Quotable Catholics features quotes from Catholics in every walk of life, including not only saints, martyrs, and popes, but also scientists, politicians, soldiers, clergy, kings, and more.
  

Incremental content improvements

• More formatting and organizational improvements were added to dozens of complex articles.
• Repairs of reported content issues (minor) were completed.
  

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Visit us often as we are continually adding new features.

Site News - August 8, 2008

Much of the work here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site continues behind the scenes, but this week brings new features.

Errata (login required)

• Available exclusively at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, errata published by Encyclopedia Press, 1913 is available online. See New Testament for a nice example. Login to access this new feature.
• As part of the cross-site registration process, if you are an existing member at CAF and are logged in there, you will be able to access the errata on this site automatically.

OCE Registration

• You can now register directly here at OCE.
• Registration on OCE for new members also grants access to Catholic Answers Forums.
• The cross-site registration process has also been upgraded.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• More quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side-column block.
• Quotable Catholics features quotes from Catholics in every walk of life, including not only saints, martyrs, and popes, but also scientists, politicians, military men, clergy, kings, and more.
  

Incremental content improvements

• More formatting and organizational improvements were added to about a dozen complex articles.
  

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Visit us often as we are continually adding new features.

Site News - July 31, 2008

Much of the work here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site continues behind the scenes.

Cross-site Registration

• Members of Catholic Answers Forums do not need a separate log-in here at OCE.
• Simply register at Catholic Answers Forums and your username will be automatically recognized here at the OCE site.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• Many more quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side-column block.
• Quotable Catholics features quotes from Catholics in every walk of life, including not only saints, martyrs, and popes, but also scientists, politicians, military men, clergy, kings, and more.
  

Incremental content improvements

• Formatting and organizational improvements were added to dozens of complex articles.
  

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Additional major features are under development. Visit us often to see what is new.

Site News - June 27, 2008

Additional content and feature enhancements were made here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site.

Church History

• Our Curricula: Church History page has been extended thru the end of the Medieval Period.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• Still more quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side-column block.
  

Incremental content improvements

• Fixes regarding reported errors and broken links were applied.
  
• Formatting and organizational improvements were added to several of the more complex articles.
  

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Some major features are under development. Visit us often to see what is new.

Site News - June 20, 2008

Additional content and feature enhancements were made here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site.

Mariology Curricula

• A new Curricula: Mariology page has been added.

Church History Curricula

• Our Curricula: Church History page has been extended up to 1303 A.D. This extensive compilation covers Early Church History up thru the middle of the Medieval Period.

Interface Enhancements

• Some 23,000 additional article navigational links were added per a suggestion from a user.
  

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• Still more quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side-column block.
  

Incremental content improvements

• Fixes regarding reported errors and broken links were applied.
  

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Some major features are under development. Visit us often to see what is new.

Site News - June 13, 2008

Work on major enhancements continues behind-the-scenes here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia.

Church History Curricula

• Our Curricula: Church History page has been extended up to 1076 A.D. This extensive compilation covers Early Church History up thru the Early Medieval Period.

Interface Enhancements

• The menu system has been further streamlined and updated with new links. Site theme enhancements were also added.
  

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• More quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side-column block.
  

Incremental content improvements

• Fixes regarding reported recognition errors and broken links continue to be applied.
  

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Yet even more major features are in the works. Visit us often to see what is new.

Site News - June 6, 2008

More new features have been implemented this past week.

RSS Feeds

• Enhanced feed support for Newsgator, Google, Yahoo, and Bloglines readers is now available.

Art Gallery

• Thumbnail previews have been added
• Color images were added
• Images in landscape orientation have been rotated appropriately (both thumbnails and full-size pages) for easier viewing.
  

Map Room

• Thumbnail previews have been added
• Maps in landscape orientation have been rotated appropriately (both thumbnails and full-size pages) for easier viewing.
  

Church History Curricula

• Church History has been extended from 313 A.D. (Edict of Milan) to 692 A.D. (Council of Trullo).

Browser Compatibility

• Substantial work was done to provide a consistent user experience across all major browsers. ATTENTION IE USERS: be sure to check out the better access to search results and large article displays.

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

Many more features are forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned.

Site News - May 30, 2008

A shortened work week due to Memorial Day slowed things down a bit here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site. Nevertheless, we have a few new features to announce.

RSS Feeds

• Feeds for this site have been upgraded to the RSS 2 standard. They have also been checked using well-known feed validators.
• In addition, the feeds have been enhanced with additional content and hyperlinks
• RSS: Catholic Quotes - "Quotes by notable Catholics" is now available on the feeds list. This feed provides random selections in XML format.

We will be adding new topics and new feed implementations over the course of time.

Quotable Catholics (side column block)

• More quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side-column block.
  

Published Errata

• We posted additional errata data (for Volume 12 articles). Examples can be found in the articles on Relics and The Renaissance.
  

Saints List

• Commemoration and Feast dates as well as patronages have been added to the list.

Indexes and Subtitles

• A few more typos and syntax issues were found and fixed.

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum. We welcome your feedback.

More features will be forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead. Please visit often.

Site News - May 23, 2008

Work on new features continues here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site.

A new class of OCE features is being made public today: RSS Feeds 

• RSS: Catholic Saints - Saints from the Original Catholic Encyclopedia; daily feed in XML format.
• RSS: Popes - Popes from the Original Catholic Encyclopedia; daily feed in XML format.

We will be adding new topics and new feed implementations over the course of time.

More quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side column block.

We also posted additional errata data (for Volume 13 articles). Examples can be found in Revelation and Rights.

Work on improving content formatting and site useability is ongoing.

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum over at Catholic Answers Forums. We welcome your feedback.

We are planning many exciting features for this site, so check back often.

Site News - May 16, 2008

Work on new features continues here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site.

Our popular Curricula series was expanded again this past week:

• Curricula: Education - A very nice survey of the Catholic Church's contributions towards education and training
• Curricula: Philosophy - This new Curricula has absorbed earlier ones on Logic, Ethics, Metaphysics and Epistemology while expanding its coverage into all key areas of Philosophy
• Curricula: Church History - This Curricula covers the first 300 years of the Church, up to the time of Constantine. We plan to expand coverage up to the 20th century; making it quite comprehensive when complete.

New quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side column block, as well.

Work on improving content formatting and site useability is ongoing.

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum over at Catholic Answers Forums. We welcome your feedback.

We are planning many exciting features for this site, so check back often.

Site News - May 9, 2008

Efforts continue towards new features here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site. Work remains largely "behind-the-scenes" in preparation for future enhancements. For example, a number of administrative tools have been created that should accelerate our efforts; and improvements in server and network configurations were made to speed web page delivery Still, we had enough time to extend already available features:

At the request of a Catholic Answers Forums member, we have created a new Curricla (hyperlinked study outlines) on Christology:

• Curricula: Christology - outlines all major developments regarding our understanding of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Also, a number of comments regarding our Errata framework have been received. Based on these, improvements have been made with an eye towards making the framework simpler to use and understand by site visitors. We also posted additional errata data (for Volume 14 articles). If you want to see what it looks like, take a look at our articles on the Old Testament and Vermont (for example).

New quotes have been added to the Quotable Catholics side column block, as well.

Work on improving overall content quality and site useability is ongoing.

Have comments or suggestions regarding this site? Please post them in the Catholic Encyclopedia forum over at Catholic Answers Forums. We welcome your feedback.

As mentioned above, many exciting features are in the queue, so check back often.

Site News - May 2, 2008

Work on new features here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site continues. Much of the work continues to be "behind-the-scenes" in preparation for future feature enhancements.

Several new essential subjects have been added to our Curricla (hyperlinked study outlines):

• Curricula: Epistemology - That which is concerned with the value of human knowledge
• Curricula: Logic - That which directs the reasoning mind towards clearness, consistency and validity
• Curricula: Metaphysics - the most general and fundamental principles underlying all reality and all knowledge
• Curricula: Sacred Scripture - Key topics for systematic scriptural studies

The latter is especially broad in scope and pulls together hundreds of articles.

We have a framework running to incorporate the published Errata from the TCE. We have all the errata data and have posted some (from Volume 15). If you want to see what it looks like, take a look at Venice and Vermont (for example).

A new Quotable Catholics side column block has been added with quotes by Catholics (obviously) who are the subjects of articles (perhaps not so obvious) in the encyclopedia.

Work on improving overall content quality and site useability continues as well, including: (a) article formatting cleanups (minor); (b) repairs of reported content issues (minor); (c) repair of a few title/subtitle issues (minor); (d) user interface cleanups; and (e) structural reorganization of some large articles.

As suggested above, many exciting features are planned for release in the near future, so check back often.

Site News - April 25, 2008

We continue to work on new features here at the Original Catholic Encyclopedia site, although much of the work this past week was "behind-the-scenes" in preparation for features to be released in the future.

Nevertheless, a few new features are available for public release:

Two new essential subjects have been added to our Curricla (hyperlinked study outlines):

• Curricula: Ethics - The science of the moral rectitude of human acts
• Curricula: Science - System of knowledge which attempts to model objective reality

The latter is especially sweeping in scope and provides a good overview of the relationship between the Church and Science.

Work on improving overall content quality and site useability continues as well, including:
(a) article formatting cleanups (minor);
(b) repairs of reported content issues (minor);
(c) repair of a few title/subtitle issues (minor);
(d) user interface cleanups; and
(e) structural reorganization of some large articles.

As suggested above, many exciting features are planned for release in the near future, so check back often.

Site News - April 18, 2008

Work on new features here at OCE continues. This past week we focused on novel organization of the content found in this work as well as simplifying access:

Interested in exploring certain topics in more depth? We've created hyperlinked study outlines (curricla) for the following essential subjects:

• Curricula: Apologetics - Explanation and Defense of the Faith
• Curricula: Catechetics - Teaching the Faith
• Curricula: Hagiography - The Lives of the Saints
• Curricula: Homiletics - Sermons and Homilies
• Curricula: Patrology - The Early Church Fathers

A Site Status module has been added to the left column. This provides visitors with a snapshot of the content used to create the OCE site and its freshness.

A sidebar on Hagiography was added to the Index of 1,001 Saints to provide quick access to related topics on the lives of the saints, martyrologies, and the like.

Each article page has new links to its next door neighbors. These "next" and "previous" links not only simplify quick movement through sequential articles, they also provide an easy way to check nearby articles for similar content. Additionally, these links have mouseover pop-up tips that provide a preview of the article. This provides a quick way to get a sense of that article's content without having to actually load the page.

More features will be forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead. Please visit often.

Site News - April 11, 2008

We are continuing to implement new features here at OCE. This past week we focused on adding more access points to the content found in this work:

• Inside the page flipper (where you are looking at page scans of the original work) additional links have been added:
  • The listing of Nearby Articles is expanded, providing up to a dozen nearby articles
  • A listing of any Nearby Maps has been added
  • A listing of Nearby Illustrations has been added
• A list of Popes has been compiled from articles in the Original Catholic Encyclopedia. It is not an article from the print version, but is provided here for the benefit of of Internet visitors. The list is sortable by name (alpha) and by chronology.
• A list of Saints has been compiled from articles in the Original Catholic Encyclopedia. It is not an article from the print version, but is provided here for the benefit of of Internet visitors. The list can be reverse sorted.

We also continue to work on improving overall content quality and site useability, including article formatting cleanups, repairs of all reported content issues, and repair of a few minor indexing issues.

Finally, in response to a few queries about the effort put into the OCE site, we've posted an explanation in the "Why OCE?" article.

Stay tuned as there will be more features forthcoming in the weeks and months ahead.

Site News - April 4, 2008

We are continuing to implement new features here at OCE. This past week we focused on adding access points to the marvelous imagery found in The Catholic Encyclopedia:

• Map Room - a gallery of the color maps from the original print volumes
• Art Gallery - includes the full-page colorplates, photos, and illustrations
• Scans Index - easy access to the page scans by individual volume

Plus we are continuing to work behind-the-scenes to improve overall content quality and site useability:

• Article formatting cleanups
• Improved browser compatibility
• Updates to the alpha indicies and page flipper functionality
• Content repairs on all reported issues

And there is still more in the works.

What's New - March 28, 2008

We've been very busy over the last few months. Many issues raised by our site reviewers have been addressed:

• All known Catholic Encyclopedia structural issues related to indexing and titles have been straightened out.
• Improved access to (and within) the Title Index.
• Missing subtitles have been added.
• Overly complex subtitles have been edited for size and clarity.
• Known broken hyperlinks have been replaced and/or repaired.
• Most reported spelling/hyphenation issues have been fixed.
• A simplified "Problem Reporting" mechanism has been added (see below for more information).
• Support for "e-mail this page" functionality has been added to every article page.
• Support for IE 7 browsers is now complete.

In addition several new features have been implemented:

• In addition to providing the text of every article as before, we have just uploaded 28,000+ scan images (full-size pages plus thumbnails) from the original volumes.
• You can access every article as originally printed so you can be assured of the accuracy of our article text!
• Every (text) article has an embedded thumbnail of the scan of the original printed page. It is linked to a full-sized page scan.
• Every page scan has links back to the associated articles.
• You can flip through the page scans just like reading a book.
• All color plates and full-page illustrations are included in the page scans.

More new features are planned for the days and weeks ahead here at The Original Catholic Encyclopedia site. So stay tuned!

Reporting Problems - New

We need your help! This content is in Release Candidate Mode.

Many systemic errors arising from the OCR process have already been identified and corrected during internal and third-party review processes.

We now ask for your help in identifying any remaining problems. These problems fall broadly into two categories, spelling and punctuation. These probably manifest themselves as follows:

• improper punctuation (e.g., unmatched quotes, apostrophe/comma and comma/period substitutions);
• improper formatting (e.g., missing italics, excessive bolding, etc.);
• improperly numbered subsections (e.g., improper use of 1, l, and I);
• missing or added spaces (e.g., "often" vs. "of ten");
• improper word substitutions caused by poor character recognition (e.g., "meat" vs. "meet").

If you see a possible error while reading an article, we request that you:

1. Confirm that an error exists in the article text by clicking the scan thumbnail to view the actual scan image.
2. If you have found a real error, click the "Report translation problem" link at the bottom of the text article.
3. Note the location in the article of any problem (e.g., paste the word, phrase, sentence)
4. Note the type of problem (describe the issue you found, such as: spelling, punctuation, hyphen).
5. List the fix (provide the accurate spelling, punctuation, hyphenation).

NOTE: The Catholic Encyclopedia represents a snapshot of Catholic knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. As such, the content found here is not intended to reflect subsequent doctrinal developments (e.g., Vatican II) and changes in discipline (e.g., Friday abstinence), so there is no need to document these issues in a problem report.