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RR 2005/343 The Modern Catholic Encyclopedia (revised and expanded edition) Edited by Michael Glazier and Monika K. Hellwig Liturgical Press Collegeville, MN 2004 xxv + 898 pp. ISBN 0 8146 5962 4 (hbck); ISBN 0 8146 5219 0 (pbck) £50, $59.95 (hbck); £28.99, $39.95 (pbck) A "Michael Glazier Book". Distributed in Europe by Columbia Book Service
Keywords Christianity, Encyclopaedias
Review DOI 10.1108/09504120510622634
The introduction gives the clue to the book. A generation has passed since Vatican II, many new pastoral challenges have arisen to change Catholic attitudes, and the Church has continued to oscillate between an ethic of control and of responsibility. There are calls for structural changes in the Church, not least over women in the priesthood, and for "wider and more open discussion of ideas". There has also, it says, been a shift of scriptural and theological studies from Europe to America, and growing involvement by laymen and women in such issues.
So, times of and for change, and this accounts for the revision of the original edition of this encyclopedia dating from 1994. Revision includes 150 new entries. Michael Glazier founded Scholarly Resources Inc. in 1972 and then in 1977 set up Michael Glazier Inc. for publishing scholarly religious and secular texts. Works like The Encyclopedia of American Catholic History, The New Dictionary of Theology and The Aramaic Bible: The Targums series are available from the Liturgical Press (see www.litpress.com). This press was founded in 1962 by St John's Abbey (see www.saintjohnsabbey.org), a monastic community in the Benedictine tradition with a wide ministry of education, parish work, and mission, linked to Saint John's University and Saint John's School of Theology/Seminary. Glazier is joined in his editorial work by Monika Hellwig of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in Washington DC, and about 300 scholarly contributors mainly from North America and Ireland. The paperback version (as reviewed) was sturdy and printed well on strong paper, and each page of (well-edited) text (with many black and white illustrations) appears in a two-column but legible format.
If such a work is going to work at all, it will succeed on several levels...