A list of acceptable references that can be cited in VeriCat.Org verification files is provided below, as well as useful links and tips.
Ecumenical Council Documents: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils
Papal Documents: http://www.papalencyclicals.net/document-directory is probably the most easily usable website. http://www.vatican.va/offices/papal_docs_list.html and other portions of the Vatican website are another good free resource. https://www.ewtn.com/holysee/pontiff/categories.asp is worth a read, and EWTN library is occasionally useful but harder to navigate https://www.ewtn.com/v/library/search.asp . Example citation ““Dies Domini”, paragraph 67, Apostolic Letter Pope John Paul II.”
Bible: Approved Translations of the Bible | USCCB should be quoted or cited in VeriCat.org material. The Douay Rheims bible can be used as well as it is not copyrighted http://www.drbo.org/ , however short paragraph citations from copyrighted Bibles should fall under “fair use” per section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 and be fine to quote within reason too. Example citation “Exodus 20:8-11”
St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (ST): Available online for free at http://newadvent.org/summa/index.html . Pro Tip-Don’t cite the “objections” as catholic truths, generally not a winning strategy. Many different short-hands (e.g., ST I-II, Q 3, A 2, ad. 1) have been developed as elaborated here and while we accept any such citations we kindly ask you spell it out and provide link when possible to avoid confusion. Example citation: “SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: The necessity of the sacraments (Tertia Pars, Q. 61) (newadvent.org) ST Question 61 Article 1 reply to objection 2)”.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC): Available free http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM and http://scborromeo.org/ccc.htm and here http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/catechism-of-the-catholic-church/ Example citation “CCC 2185”
The Catechism of St. Pius X (CX): Not officially intended for universal use in the Church, and some out of date canon law references, however there is a ton of great information in this under-used, under-appreciated, short simple catechism Catechism of St. Pius X | EWTN Example citation “CX The Second Article of the Creed>Question 8”
The Catechism of the Council of Trent/The Roman Catechism (CT): This is the catechism promulgated by St. Pius V as a directive of the Council of Trent as the catechism for all parish priests to use (and this was the norm for over 400 years) and in 1905 St. Pius X reaffirmed in Acerbo Nimis that catechetical instruction shall be based on this catechism. Since the publishing of the CCC, this has become an underutilized resource. Unfortunately, this resource is not broken off into numbered paragraphs, so when citing it please state the section/article you are referring to and other qualitative directions to assist vericat.org volunteers when they go to check your sources. Available for free http://www.saintsbooks.net/books/The%20Roman%20Catechism.pdf and http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/catechism/trentc.htm . Unfortunately, neither of these websites retain the footnotes available in printed versions of the Catechism of the Council of Trent (which are quite copious and useful). ISBN: 9781313537605 is a cheap printed copy (available at Amazon and elsewhere). Example citation ““Ten Commandments> the Third Commandment>Neglect Of This Commandment A Great Crime” sub-section second sentence”
The Baltimore Catechism (CB): We will assume you are using the 1941 edition available on this website if you don’t provide a more detailed citation with year and edition https://www.catholicity.com/baltimore-catechism/
Code of Canon Law/Codex Iuris Canonici (CIC): The 1983 code is preferred when speaking of currently binding law, but the 1917 code and others are acceptable too. Must cite year and canon number. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM Example citation, “CIC 1983, Canon 1247”.
The Catholic Encyclopedia (CE): Only the 1913 edition is in the public domain and therefore only this edition is acceptable for reference. It is available for free at http://newadvent.org/cathen/ and https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia and https://www.catholicity.com/encyclopedia/ (note: The Newadvent.org version is much more easily navigable and recommended.)
The Directory for Catechesis (DC): Please explain if 2020, 1997, or 1971 edition is being cited and paragraph number. General Directory for Catechesis (vatican.va) Directory for Catechesis (New Edition) | USCCB, General Directory for Catechesis (vatican.va), and 1971 edition available free online. is meant to be a systemized approach to catechetics. The DC is intended not to offer catechetical content so much as the direction and principles of catechesis in contemporary times. Therefore, it’s unlikely to come up as a verification file citation, but may come up someday. Example citation, “DC 1997 Paragraph 49”.
Denzinger “Enchiridion Symbolorum: The Sources of Catholic Dogma”: This popular resource, which contains various creeds and excerpts of Church documents related to various topics, underwent many revisions and (as usual) English translation is less ideal than the Greek/Latin but we English only speakers are grateful to have it. The 30th edition and the 43rd edition are the most widely available in America presently and to the extent you can remain confined to citing these two editions it would be a convenience to us. Be careful not to accidentally cite a condemned statement as if it were a true statement, it can be easy to lose track 🙂 , and read the other “Dangers in the use of Denzinger” at the end of this page.
Ott “Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma”: Similar to Denzinger, many editions exist but presently the 2018 edition of Ott is most widely in circulation in America, so confining citations to this 2018 edition would be appreciated. While both have “Dogma” in the title, Denzinger and Ott have similar but different purposes, with Ott having more extended explanations more systematically laid out and less lengthy quotations of Church documents than Denzinger. You could think of Denzinger as a reference book and Ott more as something you could read cover to cover.
General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM): Please cite edition when practical (lest a 4th edition come out with new numbering 😮 ) General Instruction of the Roman Missal | USCCB. Example citation, “GIRM 3rd edition Paragraph 22”
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith documents: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/doc_doc_index.htm
Various writings of saints: For example, “Story of a Soul” by St. Therese of Lisieux, “Introduction to the Devout Life” by St. Francis de Sales, etc. List of good translations and primary sources forthcoming.
Note: CatholicCrossReference (The Cross Reference – New American Bible Concordance (catholiccrossreference.online)) The Cross Reference: Catholic Resources is a great tool for searching for phrases or terms across various translations of bibles, the CCC, and other Magisterial documents. Church Fathers Scripture Index (catholiccrossreference.online)
The following are less preferable sources to cite, but occasionally acceptable:
Bible commentaries: Information taken from the Haydock commentary (free here) https://web.archive.org/web/20160422023253/http://haydock1859.tripod.com/ , the Navarre Bible (for sale here) https://scepterpublishers.org/collections/navarre-bibles , and the Ignatius Press study bible (for sale here) https://www.ignatius.com/promotions/catholic-study-bible/ will, for the most part, be readily accepted. Other commentaries will be considered, but due to potential lack of access to other commentaries and inherent difficulty for VeriCat.org volunteers to research the reliability of other commentaries, other commentaries are unideal. Matthew 1 – Catena Bible & Commentaries can be another good resource. Example citation “Romans 11:6 commentary of George Leo Haydock George Leo Haydock on Romans 11:6 – Catena Bible & Commentaries“
Various other Roman Curia Documents: http://w2.vatican.va/content/romancuria/en.html . Typically, orthodoxy verifying statements contained in these sorts of documents can be found and cited in other church documents. VeriCat moderators that check the verification files are more familiar with documents mentioned earlier and it is a burden for them to have to research and keep track of other Roman Curia Documents (slowing down their review and taxing their patience as volunteers). It can get ambiguous what level of authority some Roman Curia Documents have, there can be English translation issues, etc . Nevertheless, these can be fine sources to cite.
Butler’s Lives of the Saints (BL): Please cite the exact year and edition (and preferably where it can be found online for free) if you are going to use this as a reference. This link has one common and well organized, but short, version that we will assume you mean unless otherwise cited https://www.bartleby.com/210/ . We are also aware of http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/index.htm or www.freecatholicebooks.com/books/butlersvol1.pdf
The Church Fathers: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/ Due to some early church fathers occasionally saying heretical things and disagreeing with one another, this is an unideal, but occasionally acceptable, source (more-so, it can be easy to misinterpret what the English rendition of their sayings mean and over-extrapolate as amateurs). https://www.churchfathers.org/ is a sparknotes version of Church Father saying that can be useful.
Wikipedia.org, history/science textbooks, and other non-Catholic non-theological documents may occasionally be acceptable sources when speaking about general facts and non-theological information (accurate, defendable, traceable information for key statements in general is what we are after and semi-scholarly approaches, prudence, and easy to find/verify references is what we ask of contributors).
Other Catechisms: There are various old catechisms that have been so long out of print and are so scarcely available that they beg the question of “is this authentic? Is this perhaps a work of an old borderline Jansenist or other such sect?”. If it’s part of the Tradivox project or other more recently vetted reprinting with a more recent imprimatur then we’ll tend to accept it as a starting point. There are other locally distributed new catechisms published every year around the world and perhaps there is some good content in some of them. The main point is that such citations are a burden for our volunteer reviewers to track down (in part because we don’t own such catechisms) and it would be better for you to take inspiration from such old/local catechisms, but then trace the verification of their statements to newer catechisms/universal Church documents so our volunteers don’t have to ( or find someone in the forum to help you make the citations ). We don’t want to over-rely on keyboard warriors in the comment sections to find discrepancies to cover the gaps afforded by references to such old works.
As a final thought, we thought it pertinent to echo the following from Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum which appears under the heading of “”Dangers in the use of Denzinger” which is as pertinent to the dangers of losing the forest through the trees while creating Verification Files as it is when using Denzinger:
“Yves Congar, in a famous article, called attention to a series of dangers that can arise from a superficial, naive, and thoughtless use of “Denzinger”.
-The succession of texts that are in themselves of widely differing importance can give the impression that it is a question of paragraphs in a code of law where all are more or less the same.
-The idea can be fostered that there might be for all believers “a kind of unique superbeing…, the Magisterium, that watches over them, treats them like children, corrects, and determines what opinions may and may not be held”. The fact that there are many ways in which the faith can be protected and interpreted is overlooked. Tradition cites the Fathers as well as the liturgy, the great theologians, and so on. Magisterial documents represent merely one of the forms of this interpretation by which the faith is protected.
-It is necessary to guard against the idea that individual theological terms possess exactly the same meaning in each document. The range of meaning of one and the same word often varies considerably from one period of time to another. The terms sacramentum and dogma, for example, undergo important shifts in meaning.
-The selection of texts in previous editions of “Denzinger” severely relegated to the background the magisterial witness of particular and provincial synods and of individual bishops in favor of papal doctrinal documents. This creates an erroneous image of the ordinary Magisterium in the fullness of its forms.
-Finally, it is necessary to consider the overall context in which all definitions and declarations of a magisterial sort appear. They are an expression of faithful living and should promote a religious, spirit-filled life. Such texts, therefore, will be correctly understood and appropriated only when they are received, not as externally imposed, so-called “juridical” commandments, but, on the contrary, as witnesses of faith.
The appropriate theological use of “Denzinger”[and Verification Files] precisely does not lead to a sterile “Denzinger theology”. The latter represents, rather, a misuse of this collection of texts. The rich profit of “Denzinger” about which Congar speaks begins to flow forth for the one who deals with this collection in a genuinely theological way.”