The Modern Catholic Encyclopedia.

Edited by Michael glazier and Monika Hellwig, Liturgical Press/Glazier Books, $69.95, 933 pp.

For Catholic reference books I have a very simple rule of thumb: can one find basic information that someone (like a reporter) might wish to know about the phenomena of Catholicism? Hardly a week goes by without somebody calling our department asking for a point of information. As the resident "expert" in Catholic trivia, I usually get these questions. Here are some recent topics of inquiry: angels, stigmata, apparitions, the origin of Saint Valentine's Day, Halloween, and, most recently, why Saint Joseph is often depicted holding a lily on a staff. Glazier and Hellwig have entries on all but Halloween and Saint Joseph's lily. Well, four out of six is not bad. On the broader topics to which I receive queries such as birth control, abortion, etc., the encyclopedia does better.

Most of the things I first thought to look up were in this encyclopedia. The entries on doctrine were reliable and "middle of the road." The editors themselves preferred to emphasize more modem figures (Dorothy Day, John XXIII, Thomas Merton, etc.) at the expense of older figures in the tradition. There are some "boxes" to amplify entries (a list of all popes at the entry on "pope" and a list of the various Eastern churches with their populations under the entry "Eastern Churches"), and both black and white and color illustrations.

Having been involved with more than one encyclopedia project, I am keenly aware of the difficulty of deciding what entries to include in a one-volume reference book. Nonetheless, one sees, inevitably, some oddities and lacunae. This encyclopedia is no exception to that generalization. First, oddities: an entry on "mosaic" that turns out not to be about an art form but an adjective for Moses (who does not get an entry; nor does Abraham). Furthermore, after the article on the Dominican Order there is an entry on one congregation of Dominican Sisters (why just that one?) but none after the Franciscans. Again, after the article "Catholicism" there is another one on "Catholicism, Irish" but none on "Catholicism, Italian or Polish" or whatever. Why this little flair of national pride when the book is published at a distinguished abbey founded by German-speaking monks? Again, there is an entry on a minor Irish poet, Patrick Kavanaugh, but nothing on writers like Paul Claudel, Francois Mauriac, Georges Bernanos, et al.

In sum: on a scale of one to ten I would give this work about a six. However, to avoid appearance of any conflict of interest, I should confess to being an associate editor of another one-volume Catholic encyclopedia, published by HarperSan Francisco. It is from that prejudicial angle that I make this assessment. Let the potential buyer compare.