Catholic social encyclopedia is uneven in quality

The new two-volume interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science and Social Policy portrays as its goal "a comprehensive and broad-ranging analysis of how Catholic religious, moral and intellectual tradition can and should shape society and social life."

Frankly, despite numerous fine scholarly articles, it falls short of the goal. It would have benefited greatly from a wider, more thoroughly representative board of Catholic writers and editors. Alongside balanced articles are patently ideological ones. Too much of the work is unabashedly skewed toward conservative American Catholic thinking - from its stable of writers to its choice of topics and the individuals selected for biographical portraits. It is not a balanced work of Catholic scholarship. For example, the encyclopedia's article on The Wanderer - an independent Catholic newspaper long noted for its advocacy of conservative Catholic views - casually names the late U.S. Scripture scholar, Sulpician Father Raymond E. Brown, among "liberal theologians and Bible scholars who dilute truths like the divinity of Christ and the divine inspiration of scripture." Father Brown has long been regarded as the pre-eminent scripture scholar in the history of the U.S. Catholic Church. He was serving his second term on the Pontifical Biblical Commission -- hardly a haven for heretics -- when he died in 1998. For an encyclopedia to laud The Wanderer's lengthy 1970s attack on him as an example of its noble battles for Catholic orthodoxy, when virtually the entire community of Catholic biblical scholars found that attack unwarranted and vicious, is nothing less than irresponsible. The article on The Wanderer also serves as a good example of the selectivity of topics in this encyclopedia. It is the only Catholic newspaper to which an article is devoted. There are also separate articles on several other periodicals held in high regard among conservative Catholics, but none on America or Commonweal, magazines that have long had an influential role in U.S. discussions of Catholic social teaching. Among Catholic book publishers, Ignatius Press gets an article, but there is no similar treatment of other Catholic publishing houses such as Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, Paulist Press or Orbis Books. A large number of the encyclopedia's 300 writers have their academic abodes in the Ave Maria School of Law and the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. The encyclopedia is sponsored by the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, which was formed in 1992 and has its headquarters at the Steubenville school. The society describes itself as "the only organization of Catholic social scientists firmly committed to the orthodox teaching of the church in the United States and Canada." Among the authors are also several contributors to The Wanderer, including Stephanie Block, who is noted for her efforts to discredit the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. Catholic Church's domestic anti-poverty program. Block is the author of the encyclopedia's highly negative article on the CCHD and of similarly negative articles about the Center of Concern, a Catholic social justice think tank, and Network, a Catholic social justice lobbying group in Washington. The encyclopedia has some puzzling gaps. It has separate articles on Catholic higher education in Canada and in the United States and an article on Catholic elementary and secondary education in Canada, but nothing on Catholic elementary and secondary education in the United States. It devotes nearly two full pages to the topic of spanking -- far more than it gives to articles on much more substantive Catholic teaching or social policy topics such as abortion, the common good or marriage. Despite its focus on the social sciences, it has no article on the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, based at Georgetown University, or on the Life Cycle Institute of The Catholic University of America -- two of the leading institutions engaged in sociological research in the service of the U.S. Catholic Church. In short, this publication is still very much a work in progress. It shows promise, but any future edition will have to show far greater balance and comprehensiveness before it becomes a must-have reference work. - - - Filteau was a researcher, reporter and editor with Catholic News Service for 37 years before his retirement earlier this year. - - - Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science and Social Policy, edited by Michael L. Coulter, Stephen M. Krason, Richard S. Myers and Joseph A. Varacalli. Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, Md., 2007). 1,165 pp. $150.

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