Religion Reference Resources
by Anne LeVeque, Catholic News Service

• The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion - a good general resource. Jonathan Z. Smith, ed. 1995, HarperCollins.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church - What does the Church say about/believe in, etc. - it's all in there!
• The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism - an excellent source for information on Catholicism. Richard P. McBrien, ed. 1995, HarperCollins.
• Handbook of Denominations - an invaluable resource, gives capsule summaries of beliefs, differences and origins. By Frank S. Mead, Revised by Samuel S. Hill, 10th edition, 1995, Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn.
• Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches - gives good nuts & bolts information, media contacts, names of church leaders, addresses, statistics, etc., etc. Eileen W. Lindner, ed., Prepared and edited for the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, published and distributed by Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn.
• American Jewish Yearbook - Contains analytical essays, recent developments, statistics, and directory information. Published by the American Jewish Committee annually.
• Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Almanac - Great source for all kinds of information about anything to do with Catholicism. OSV, Inc., Huntington, Indiana. Annual.
• How to Be A Perfect Stranger - make your reporters and photographers take a look at this BEFORE they cover events in a house of worship. If the denomination isn't listed, have them call ahead or if this is not feasible, make them *gasp* put on a tie or dress, whichever is appropriate (stop snickering!) Arthur J. Magida, ed. 1996, Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, Vermont.
• Butler's Lives of the Saints, New Full Edition - Seven volumes in this twelve-volume set have been produced so far. This is the authoritative source for information on saints. We combine the old and new editions and rely on the Catholic Almanac for calendar changes. Unless you have a calendar of saints' days, this is difficult to use, but they will soon have an index with the calendar. Paul Burns, ed. The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota.
• The Official Catholic Directory (Kenedy Directory) - Comprehensive information on all the dioceses and archdioceses in the US. Also has a directory of all clergy. Published by P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New Providence, New Jersey.
• Colleges: Princeton Review publishes The Complete Book of Catholic Colleges and Peterson's publishes a directory of Christian colleges (Protestant evangelical colleges is what they mean, though).

• New American Bible (New Testament now has a revised version) - Catholic
• Jerusalem Bible - tends to be more accurate translation, but wording is sometimes strange
• New Revised Standard Version - corrected version of King James, uses inclusive language
• King James Version - the poetic one - Linus recites from it

• Go to www.americanbible.org for all kinds of useful Bible information.

• A note on concordances: A concordance is an index of all the words in a work, and is very useful when looking up a phrase for which you don't have a citation. It gives the word in the context of a brief phrase, for instance if you were to look up the word "meek" you would find, "Blessed are the m. for they shall inherit…" Mt. 5:5. This means that the phrase is found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 5. You would also find any other instances of the word 'meek' in the Bible. Concordances are specific to the version they are indexing!! Different words are used in different versions, so you want to have a concordance for each Bible version in your library.

• Qur'an - We have The Holy Qur'an. Text, Translation and Commentary. A. Yusuf Ali, 1934. It is not much in demand in my library. I would consult with a local Islamic scholar or Imam about quoting from it; I believe there are some rules about only quoting in entire verses.

• Crosier - specializes in Christian artwork, lots of 'stained glass' style art. Gene Plaisted OSC, phone: 612-421-7115, fax: 612-421-4230.
• CNS. Call our photo researcher, Bob Roller, at 202-541-3252 or fax him at 202-541-3255 (preferred) or email at broller@nccbuscc.org.
• Corbis Images - www.corbisimages.com - they own everything on earth including the Bettman Archives and you can search online.
• Call your local houses of worship and your local museums. Museums tend to need lots of advance warning - plan ahead, they're not used to the 'I need it yesterday' mentality of the newsroom.

• www.vatican.va - The official Vatican website. I have to put them first, it's in my contract.
• www.wcc-coe.org - The World Council of Churches - has links to MANY different denominations! A great site.
• www.ncccusa.org - The National Council of Churches.
• www.catholicnews.com - Catholic News Service, limited selection of articles available to the general public, the site is primarily intended for our publishing clients.
• www.nccbuscc.org - The National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference
• alapadre.net - Catholic information on hundreds of subjects
• www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm - the Catechism of the Catholic Church
• communio.hcbc.hu - the Catholic Church in Europe
• www.dfms.org - The Episcopal Church, links to the entire Anglican Communion
• www.lutheranworld.org - The Lutheran World Federation
• www.goarch.org - The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, links to ecumenical patriarchate
• mcgill.pvt.k12.al.us/jerryd/cathmob.htm - this is an incredible site with loads of mainly Catholic information