Kyle & Craig: I'm getting worried that referencing is seriously lacking

MJ. Smith

I have been working backwards from the current edition of Denzinger (Peter Hunermann, ed. Denzinger Enchiridion symbolorum . . .2010.) Think 1973-2008. I have found it frustrating to find some documents - those that are stand alone resources usually having a standard name; those in anthologies having a wide variety of names to the point that in some cases I resort to a search on the text itself to find the document. Note that milestone searches once I know the values resolve this problem.

However, I am concerned at the number of documents that I have in my library that lack the standard milestones used for references. These mean that ALL references to the document can only reference the document ... the equivalent of referencing Matthew with no chapters or verses. I have seen how the lack of forethought and consistency in the Early Church Fathers hampers the functionally because some older resources are indexed only to the chapter while the newer resources are indexed to chapter and paragraph. This forces a compound search (or two searches) to find references/occurrences. I don't want the same mistake to be made in church documents.

This is a list of the documents without appropriate indexing that I've run into in Denzinger for the small portion that I've tried to link:

• Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Mysterium ecclesiae, June 24, 1973
• Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Abortion Quaestio de abortu procurator, November 18, 1974
• Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Certain Questions concerning Sexual Ethics Persona humana, December 29, 1975
• Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Inter insigniores on the Question of the Admission of Women to Priestly Ministry, October 15, 1976
• Letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to All Bishops Recentiores episcoporum synodi, May 17, 1979
• Instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Pastoralis actio, October 20, 1980
• Instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Libertatis nuntius, August 6, 1984
• Instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Donum vitae on Respect for Human Life in Its Origins and the Dignity of Procreation, February 22, 1987
• Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei, July 2, 1988
• Letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Orationes formas, October 15, 1989
• Instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Donum Veritatis, May 24, 1990
• Letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Communionis notio, May 2, 1992
• Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation, Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, June 1998
• The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Lutheran World Federation, “The Official Common Statement regarding the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” with the Appendix (Annex) to the “Official Common Statement”, October 31, 1999
• Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church Dominus Iesus, August 6, 2000
• Doctrinal Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Some Questions regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life, November 24, 2002
• Considerations by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons, June 3, 2003.
• Letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World, May 31, 2004         
• Notification of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the Book Jesus, Symbol of God, by Father Roger Haight, S.J., December 13, 2004
• Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Notification on the Works of Father Jon Sobrino, S.J.: Jesucristo liberador. Lectura histórico-teológica de Jesús de Nazaret (Madrid, 1991) and La fe en Jesucristo. Ensayo desde las víctimas (San Slavador, 1999      
• Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Responses to Some Questions regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church, June 29, 2007.      
• Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum on the Use of the Roman Liturgy Prior to the Reform of 1970, July 7, 2007 (reference is date which is useless in search see: Catholic academic, ordained ministers, professional laity please read and comment)
• Instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Dignitas personae on Certain Bioethical Questions, September 8, 2008               

Remember that the lack of the appropriate index means that monographs, especially theological monographs, catechisms, other church documents ... can't make the correct link so "all" resources are degraded. And yes, my list may be incomplete or otherwise imperfect - my goal was not to proof-read Verbum resources.       

Kyle G. Anderson

Thanks MJ

A couple of points and I'm sure they won't fully satisfy you but I'm trying to clarify where we're coming from and what is and isn't possible:

1. Denzinger didn't reference many of the documents you list because it was produced before we had access to those documents. I know it's an important resource and it's currently undergoing an update. The update should be pushed out shortly.
2. Page Indexing: We work with the indexes available to us. If page milestones are available to us we add them. In many of the cases for the titles you list we are provided websites from the publishers which did not include pages.
3. Further Indexing: This is a balancing act. Creating a new data type (i.e. index) is an extremely large undertaking. It's more than just updating a resource. It involves creating an entirely new schema as well as updates to the desktop and mobile application that are necessary to make sure the index is understood and also prevent older clients from discovering the resource which would otherwise cause them to crash. Because it's a large undertaking and there is no end to possible indices we could potentially create we need to weigh the pros and cons of creating a new index type versus other work (i.e. if we're creating a new data type that means there is something else that we're not working on). This generally involves considerations of how often its cited in the library, how its cited, how absolutely necessary it is to read the resource, etc. On this point, I should mention that it's not necessarily a once for all decision. We can always go back and create new indexes should situation changes.