Handbook of Catholic Theology edited by Wolfgang Beinert and Francis Schussler Fiorenza The HarperCollins Encyclopedia Of Catholicism edited by Richard P McBrien
Komonchak, Joseph A
FROM SAINTS TO NUTS Handbook of Catholic Theology Wolfgang Beinert and Frauds Schussler Fiorenza, editors Crossroad, $75,783 pp. The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism Editor, Richard P....
...Joseph A. Komonchak, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, teaches in the Department of Religion and Religious Education at The Catholic University of America...
...Caryll Houselander and Paul Horgan don't make it...
...Perhaps in order to compensate for the German focus, the English edition includes several essays written by American theologians...
...These are the sorts of things, serious and not so serious, that a reviewer can notice in reviewing works of such great ambition...
...The readership of this text will be largely drawn from graduate students and it might help to remind them how much they will be missing if they can't read foreign languages...
...given the content of most of the added articles, they might more properly be called: "North American Perspectives...
...Nineteenth-century traditionalism is here, but not our twentieth-century variety...
...Inevitably, of course, the articles vary in quality, but the cross-references often allow the weaknesses of one treatment to be compensated for by others...
...Cross-references are abundant, but bibliographies are supplied inconsistently...
...Catholic layperson"), but not Governor Casey or Geraldine Ferraro...
...Cardinal O'Connor is here, but not Cardinals Law, Krol, or the other living American cardinals...
...Among the protagonists of Vatican II, Cardinals Alfrink, Suenens, Dearden, and Ottaviani are in, but not Konig, Dopfner, Ritter, and Shehan...
...Governor Cuomo is admitted (his speech on religion and politics-guess where it was delivered-is said to be "considered by some the most important and influential address on the subject ever given by a U.S...
...There are articles on the "Big Bang," reproductive technologies, centering prayer, the seamless garment, the preferental option for the poor, inclusive language and sexism (but not on political correctness), and, in successive entries, both Women for Faith and Family and the Women's Ordination Conference...
...In the articles translated from the original German edition, a theme is typically developed by exploring the biblical background, the history of theological reflection, official church teaching, ecumenical perspectives, and systematic reflections...
...Argentina might feel slighted at getting only eight lines, but Brazil gets none...
...along with America, The Catholic World and Theological Studies, but not The Sign, The Thomist, and The Homiletic and Pastoral Review...
...The bibliographies supplied for each article refer almost exclusively to works written in or translated into English, a pity...
...If Hubert Jedin, why not Johannes Quasten...
...J. Bryan Hehir is here, but not George Higgins or Michael Novak...
...Opus Dei is here, but not Communione e Libera-zione or the Legionnaires of Christ...
...history...
...The handsomely produced volume of 1,345 pages is well worth the surprisingly cheap price...
...Both volumes generally succeed in what they have attempted and will be usefully added to Catholic libraries, both institutional and personal...
...The YMCA and the YWCA have brief entries but not the CYO or the YCS and YCW...
...Besides Notre Dame, the only other American Catholic institutions of higher education noticed are Catholic University and Georgetown...
...Anyone who wants to get an idea of what passes for theology in Germany and the United States today could usefully compare the back-to-back essays...
...John Courtney Murray is here but not two of his chief opponents, Francis Connell and Joseph Clifford Fenton...
...This is particularly evident in the treatments of ecumenical dimensions, where the dialogue with Luther-anism overshadows all others, as when it is claimed that it is Reformation communities that most insistently call for a renewal of pneumatology and no mention is made of Orthodoxy, which is also absent from the articles on bishops, church, and collegiality...
...In parallel, the entry for the University of Notre Dame begins: "the most famous Catholic university in the world," which makes it curious that there is no entry for Knute Rockne or Johnny Lujack...
...The translations are generally well done, except for the irritating use of "he or she", "his or her" formulae and by the refusal to use a personal pronoun of God, which often makes the prose sound like a "Dick and Jane" primer...
...There are many photographs and charts...
...Joseph Fichter is honored, but not Paul Hanly Furfey...
...The entries range in size from a few lines to several pages...
...We don't quite have, "Out of God's mercy and for God's glory God stretched forth God's arm to smite God's enemies and to save God's people and reconcile them to God's self," but it's not far away...
...Both past and present, the enduring and the evanescent, the central and the peripheral are represented...
...Unfortunately, this often means that only developments in German cultural or theological history are taken into account: if it wasn't thought or written in German, it can't be very important...
...If Islam and Zoroastrianism, why not Buddhism, Hinduism or Taoism...
...The university's Laetare Medal receives an entry, and its award to him crowns the article on John Tracy Ellis...
...The Encyclopedia of Catholicism has a much broader aim: while it includes a good number of articles on theological topics, it also provides a host of articles (more than 4,200) on practically everything you wanted to know about the concrete living reality that is Catholicism, including some things you probably didn't even know you could ask about There are articles on people, places, events, institutions, religious orders, sacraments, practices, art, vestments, etc...
...The Golden Dome appears in a cover-photograph...
...The focus is on Western Catholicism, but an effort is made to include the Eastern-rite churches, and there are articles also on the most prominent Protestant Reformers and traditions, on the Orthodox churches, and on some ancient and modern philosophers...
...Richard McCormick and Charles Quran make the cut, but not Germain Grisez...
...The treatments often are very brief (the history of theology on "God" has fewer than nine lines) but usually communicate the essential information, or at least as much as a typical German theologian thinks is relevant...
...Among American biblical scholars, John L. McKenzie is in, but not Bruce Vawter and Patrick Skehan...
...The entries are generally accurate and supply essential information, although sometimes so briefly that, for example in some of the articles on saints, one is left wondering why the person was canonized or chosen for inclusion here...
...If Francis Thompson, why not Joyce Kilmer or John Bannister Tabb...
...William F. Buckley is here but not Garry Wills, Rosemary Radford Ruather but not Mary Daly...
...its president emeritus wrote a foreword and appears in two photographs and a laudatory entry...
...Bishops John Hughes and Bernard McQuaid are here but not the two Kenricks or Archbishop Rommel...
...The volume was conceived and edited at the University of Notre Dame, with which the general editor and all of his associate editors have or had some connection...
...Having edited a volume which has certain parallels with those under review here, I can sympathize with the difficulties, from conception to parturition, involved in the task...
...Speaking of cardinals, where is Suhard...
...he is, says one of the photo captions, "one of the most influential Catholic leaders in U.S...
...If Methodism, why not Baptists...
...I heard recently this quip: an American theologian, asked what he thought of an earlier theological dictionary, Sacramentum Mundi, replied, "It really should be entitled Sacramentum Germaniae...
...The editors have made an effort to be up-to-date...
...These are presented under the rubric of "Contemporary Issues," perhaps a misnomer since the original German essays often discuss such issues...
...No one will complain that any person, place, thing, or event has been included here, but some will wonder "If X, then why not Y?" If Alphege of Canterbury is here, where, his descendants and others will ask, is Arnulf of Metz...
...Catholicism in Poland and Hungary is treated, but not in the Czech or Slovak Republics...
...Things get even dicier when one notices that the editors have chosen to include living people...
...Commonweal makes it (whew...
...The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism Editor, Richard P. McBrien HarperSanFrancisco, $45,1,345 pp, Joseph A. Komonchak The Handbook of Catholic Theology offers over 300 ar-tides, illustrated by about sixty charts and tables, on the most important themes in Catholic systematic theology/written by major contemporary theologians in Germany and North America...
Vol. 123 • January 1996 • No. 2
