CATHOLIC ALMANAC

Designed as a ready-to-hand reference work, the Catholic Almanac is a documentary, factual, and current annual publication covering a wide range of information about the Church, its members, and organizations. The almanac, carefully researched and indexed, is compiled from authoritative sources (all cited) and original surveys. Coverage of timely topics includes complete or excerpted texts of encyclicals and significant Church documents, features on subjects of topical interest, and a month-by-month review of news of the year with coverage of the activities of the pope, other Vatican actions, and national and international news of Catholic interest. Factual material includes statistics in many categories concerning the Church in the United States, Canada, and all other countries; and biographical sketches of the pope, cardinals, bishops of the United States from 1789 to the present, and bishops of Canada. Standard information on the Church covers doctrine, the Bible, liturgy and Sacraments, the Church calendar and saints' days, Marian doctrine, Eastern Catholic Churches, up-to-date information on the ecumenical movement and Catholic-Jewish relations.

Church history in general is presented in a century-by-century review of significant events from the first Pentecost to the present; the history of the Church in the United States is given in summary form and in a listing of background dates of each state. Information on the Church in the United States includes religious orders and congregations, secular institutes, home and foreign missions, social services, retreat houses, organizations, societies and movements, Catholic newspapers and periodicals, and awards. The almanac also contains an extensive glossary of terms.

The Catholic Almanac originated remotely from St. Anthony's Almanac, a 64-page annual with calendar, feature, and devotional contents, published by the Franciscans of Holy Name Province from 1904 to 1929. Completely revised and enlarged, the publication was issued under the title The Franciscan Almanac, by the Franciscan Magazine from 1921 to 1933, and by St. Anthony's Guild from 1936 to 1971. From 1940 to 1969, its title was The National Catholic Almanac. The present title was adopted in 1969. Felician A. Foy, OFM, has been editor since 1952. The 1959 to 1971 editions were produced jointly by St. Anthony's Guild and Doubleday & Co., Inc. The Catholic Almanac was acquired in 1971 by Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., Huntington, Ind.

[r. m. avato]