Welcome to A Hypertext Catechism of the Catholic Church

The text is taken with some editing and additions from various available printed texts from a now deleted web page of the Catholic Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, Right Reverend Dom Ambrose Griffiths, O.S.B, Bishop.

Observant readers will note British spellings of some words of the text, which was the most accessible one on the Internet when I started this project.. I had considered changing to American spelling, but translation of any text of the Catechism is reserved to the the Holy See, so I'd best not mess with it.

The Catechism is the official teaching of the Catholic Church. This text includes the changes to the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church bringing it into harmony with the official Latin text promulgated by Pope John Paul II on September 8, 1997. Where I have found differences between this text and printed texts published in the United States, I have made the appropriate changes. There are also insignificant typographical differences between various approved printed texts, which I have not attempted to resolve. I have also not attempted to preserve font style or the exact spacing of the printed texts.

Unfortunately, the teaching of the Church does not always coincide with the positions of individual Catholics. In the Catholic Church, as in virtually every organization today, there are diverse views and spirited (no pun intended) discussion on the aims and goals of the organization and the most appropriate means and methods for meeting these goals. In addition, there are many people who identify themselves as Catholics who are not in complete agreement with the official teachings of their own Church. Political party members and the those of the American Medical Association have disagreements with the official position of their organizations; why not Catholics?

Nevertheless, regardless of what individual Catholics may say (or believe) about their faith, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is the official Catholic position. (See "The Doctrinal Value of the Text," Section IV, for more information.)

To our brothers and sisters of other faiths (as well as many Catholics), the language of this document may seem flowery, stilted and overly formal. This often grates on American ears, accustomed as we are to a tradition of other Christian cultures. This is due to three facts:

First of all, the need to make absolutely clear what is being said often requires more (and bigger) words than the casual reader would require. As the first words of the Pope's message indicates, "Guarding the Deposit of Faith is the mission which the Lord entrusted to His Church..." This Deposit of Faith is the body of Scripture and Tradition on which the teaching of the Catholic Church is based. It is of paramount importance that the words say what the idea means, no more and no less.

The second reason is that the necessity of publishing a document which is expected to be translated into literally every language of the world requires an unchanging language in which the "official" document is published and from which all others are translated. For the Catholic Church, the language is popular Latin. Translations from the Latin into English are often difficult and convoluted, as the translator struggles to render into the popular tongue ideas which those old Romans could not have imagined, and for which the common language, in this case English, is not well suited.

Finally, Church documents are formal documents just as legal documents are. The Catholic Church has had almost 20 centuries of writing legal paper. Small wonder, then, that its most formal publications read like they were written by lawyers or judges which, in a sense, they are.

Scattered along the right side of this document are little "cross reference symbols" (†). and "Catechism symbols" (©). Clicking on the † symbols will take you to a subject cross reference index, a different document. You can download the Catechism text from there or by clicking on one of the © symbols, which will download it and take you to the beginning. Once you have downloaded the whole Catechism, you can scroll around in it without having to reload anything. Slow connections may take a while to load.

After mousing around in these documents for a while, you should have at least three windows open, including this Introduction, the Subject Cross Reference Index, and the Hypertext Catechism itself. You can close this Introduction and Subject Cross Reference Index after downloading the Catechism, because you won't be needing them anymore.

The whole purpose of this exercise is to make it easy for someone to find out about the Catholic Church and its teaching. For this reason, I have tried to include cross links within the documents and links to external information in which I think a reader would be interested. Documents elsewhere on the Internet will open in their own window so you can look at them and then close that window without having to reload what you were looking at before. Only those documents from the Vatican (http://www.vatican.va in your browser's "location" window) should be considered completely authoritative. Feel free to e-mail me with suggestions, comments, criticisms, notification of bad links, etc.

On a personal note, I should point out that I am a Catholic layman, and do not represent an official teacher of Catholic doctrine. I believe that in this time of crisis, all people of good will should do what they can to bring light to the gathering darkness. This is my "little candle." I have put this document on my server space as a service to my fellow Catholics and those of other faiths who may be interested in what I believe and what my Church has to say. Official Catholic Church printed documents will have the words, "Imprimatur" or "Imprimi potest" in the publication information, along with the name of the Catholic official, usually a bishop or cardinal, who authorized its publication. As far as I know, the Church has not yet figured out how to notarize documents in hyperspace.

As with any exposition of organizational doctrine, there is the potential for disagreement, argument and, perhaps, bitterness by or toward those who find some of this stuff difficult to swallow. To those who may encounter this difficulty, I can only echo the final words of the prologue,

"The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love."

The title links in the list below link to corresponding pages at the Vatican. The print page links refer to the 1995 printed document and are probably close to the same pages in whatever printed document you may have. The para numbers are to the paragraph in the Catechism in the same folder as this document. Not all of the titles have a separate Vatican page, which is why some titles are not links. You have to go to the previous title link to find them. If you'd like to get the poop straight from the Pope, you can link from these to the corresponding entry on the Vatican site. It doesn't get any more authoritative than that!

If you're ready, download the Catechism now.

God bless! John Lindorfer June 4, 2007