Liturgy Links

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO ROMAN CATHOLIC LITURGY RESOURCES ON THE INTERNET

By Thomas V. Flanagan

Introduction

Anyone who has seriously attempted to find any information on the information highway has undoubtedly stopped at some point to find themselves many hours and many miles from where they started. So it is when looking for decent sources on liturgy on the Internet. This modest guide alone represents over 30 hours of web searching, checking out indices and following links within indices. For every good link found, three or four links were rejected!

A true and complete guide would, in my estimation, require months of work and help from other liturgists on the Net in submitting their own favorite sources and links. A number of such guides are in the works. Some exist on the Internet already. This, then, is an introduction of my own, based solely on my own research. Although there are a great many ecumenical resources out there, the size of this project required me to restrict it to Roman Catholic resources.

Finally, one could simply use a popular search engine such as Infoseek or Alta Vista or Yahoo, using the term liturgy and even restricting the search to, let’s say, music or justice or art. Such a search can yield thousands of web sites. I researched the sites in quite a different way. I began with one index of liturgy sites and simply followed those links and then the links within those links. Generally, a good liturgy site will contain links to other good liturgy sites. Here then is a beginner’s guide, listing useful links.

AS ALWAYS, I DO NOT ENDORSE ANY OF THE VIEWS CONTAINED IN THESE LINKS - THEY ARE MERELY INFORMATIVE!!!!!!!

General Sites that are worth searching

http://www.gtu.edu/library – The Graduate Theological Union has a great many links. It’s a good bet that many theology school libraries would have helpful links.

http://www.csn.net/advent/cathen/cathen.htm – An attempt, not yet complete, to put The Catholic Encyclopedia on the Internet.

http://www.ewtn.com -- Yes, the Eternal Word Network is a conservative organization that is hard to classify as progressive. However, this site is an excellent resource for church documents. You’ll find categories such as church, canon law, catechetics, church councils, curial documents, and encyclicals. There are even files in Spanish. To go right to a search of the site, try http://www.ewtn.com/EWTN/library/search.htm

http://www.vatican.va -- The big site. The Vatican site is fairly new, but has a lot of information. You’ll find useful sections on the Curia (Congregations, Tribunals, Pontifical Councils, Synods of Bishops, and Offices), News Services (Press Office, Newspapers, Liturgy Office, Radio and TV), Archives (Catechism and Vatican II Documents) and The Holy Father (Exhortations and Letters).

http://www.christusrex.org – Ooohh. The title should let you know you are in conservative territory here! This site is good for all sorts of liturgical documents. Its real strength is a decent collection of images of religious art and religious architecture, including a “worldwide tour of churches”.

http://www.nccbuscc.org – This is the web site for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is a fantastic resource worth searching. If you go to http://www.nccbuscc.org/liturgy/index.htm, you’ll find current and seasonal FAQ (frequently asked questions) as well as publications and even a posting of questions and answers to liturgy topics.

http://www.cccb.ca/menu_e.htm – Here is the Canadian Catholic Conference of Bishops’ web site (in English although French is available), also worth searching. If you go to http://www.cccb.ca/html_ commissions/liturgy_e.htm, you’ll see a good list of publications and a description of the Conference’s notion of liturgy.

http://www.catholic.org/newzealand – This is the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in New Zealand.

http://www.tasc.ac.uk/cc/ -- The Catholic Church in England and Wales.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/7121/cath-hp.htm – This welcomes you to the Catholics Around The Hemisphere (CATH) Webring. It is sponsored by a Catholic Deacon serving in the Galveston-Houston Diocese of Texas. There are some decent liturgy sites, but you do have to hunt a little.

http://www.catholic.net – The Catholic Information Center on the Internet. This is a conservative site, but a decent site for documents.

http://www.wsnet.com/~alapadre – This is the AlaPadre Catholic Corner. Some excellent sites if you click on the “L” for liturgy.

http://www.gospelcom.net/ifc/ -- The Internet For Christians. A search of this site by keywords does yield some material.

http://www.nd.edu/~ndcpl/indextext.html – The Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy web site. With its mission, “To serve the worship of the living God in Spirit and in Truth,” it’s worth a search.

Sites with indices

http://www.mcgill.pvt.k12.al.us/jerryd/cathmob.htm – This is the best site I have found for beginning any search of liturgy sites on the web. It is, “In the spirit of the Second Vatican Council” and claims to have a collection of 108 pages with over 4,200 links. Quite a claim! With main categories such as Church, Liturgy, Justice, Spirituality, Theology, Religion, and Other, you are sure to find something related to your liturgy topic. To go directly to the liturgy resource page, go to http://www.mcgill.pvt.k12.al.us/jerryd/cm/liturgy.htm.

http://www.utoronto.ca/stmikes/theobook.htm – Another very good site, from Canada, filled with not only Catholic resources but also those of other religions. The Catholic resources include a fair number of other indices.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/spok/catholic.html – Catholic Resources on the Net. This index of Catholic-related resources has sections on Liturgy, the Mass, Sacraments and other Ceremonies, Music, and Art, among others.

http://members.aol.com/liturgies/Dig_1.html – Digital Liturgy Resources Online. This web site has the purpose of contributing, “to Roman Catholic liturgies around the world by sharing resources of interest to the professional liturgist, parish liturgy committee, presider, liturgical musician, [and] building construction committee.” You can also join an email discussion group here (called a list server).

http://guweb.georgetown.edu/woodstock/liturgy.htm – This is part of the Woodstock Theological Center’s web site. It has excellent sites for liturgy, as well as information on NCCB meetings and reports.

http://www.paa2000.com/goodwork.htm – The Spirit of the Internet. A great site with some liturgical resources such as handbooks and Catholic social teaching.

http://www.mindlink.net/gcote/chdoc4.htm – Resources for Catholic Educators on the Internet. This is the Liturgy section. There are Readings and Commentaries, Lectionaries from other denominations, Other sites, Art, Icon archives, Rites, and History.

http://www.golden.org/worship/sec4.html – This index contains Worship prep, Preaching helps, Musical and Kinetic arts, Visual arts, Biblical and Liturgical texts, Liturgical studies and scholarship.

http://www.ssg-online.demon.co.uk/links.html – This has a few links to sites dealing with music and liturgy.

http://www.rc.net/home.html – RCNet is a site with access to Catholic Christian resources and modern communications. It lists Catholic Content Sites as well as sites in Meeting Christ in the Liturgy, Essays and Homilies, and other Content Providers.

http://www.cris.com/~stambros/catholic2.shtml – The Catholic Goldmine. Well, certainly a gold mine of an index for conservative Catholics. This is a huge index with some useful sites. To examine liturgy, go right to http://www.cris.com/~stambros/mass.shtml.

http://www.catholic.org – another index with a conservative flavor.

http://www.catholic-church.org/cid/resources.html – The 1997 Catholic Internet Directory.

http://www.efn.org/~chester/catholic.html – A HUGE listing of links, and not just liturgy, either!

http://davinci.marc.gatech.edu/catholic/other.html – Another huge listing of Catholic Resources on the Net.

Specialized Liturgical Web Sites

General

http://www.supernet.ab.ca/Mall/Religion/westerncath.html – The Western Catholic Reporter, the largest weekly religious newspaper in Canada. This has an excellent commentary on liturgy and sacrament in light of the Catechism.

http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/search.cfm – The search page on the Dorothy Day web site. A “liturgy” search will turn up some articles.

http://www.osb.org/osb/gen/topics/liturgy – Liturgy links and information from a monastic viewpoint.

http://www.synapse.net/~oregon/liturgyc.htm – This is the page for James O’Regan, a liturgy consultant. Some interesting stuff and he posts answers to submitted questions.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/6192/topicpag.html – Topics in liturgy. A little sparse and conservative, but interesting.

Music and liturgy

http://www.cris.com/~stambros/music.html – liturgical music links.

http://www.music.princeton.edu:80/chant.html – The Gregorian Chant Home Page with links to medieval music sites and other Chant sites.

http://www.npm.org – For music links, this is the web site for the National Association of Pastoral Musicians.

http://www.taize.fr – The web site for the Taize community, excellent for music in liturgy.

Art and Architecture

http://members.aol.com/liturgies/Buicon_1.html – The Digital Liturgy site for planning worship space.

http://www.bway.net/~halsall/images.html – Great site for art. Lots of Byzantine images.

http://www.gtu.edu/library/LibArts.html – Great links for visual arts, cinema, dance, music, literature and poetry in liturgy.

http://www.christusrex.org – A great site for art and church architecture images.

Justice Issues

http://www.sky.net/~tgrel/social_doctrine.html – An excellent site for social doctrine and justice issues.

http://www.coc.org/cocl – The Center of Concern web site. Good for justice issues.

http://shaw.iol.ie/~duacon/basic.htm – A site promoting the ordination of woman as a justice issue in the church today.

http://guweb.georgetown.edu/woodstock – Again, this is the web site for the Woodstock Theological Center. It has information related to Preaching the Just Word, a program committed to justice in the liturgy, specifically in preaching.

Documents/Books

http://abbey.apana.org.au/councils/~index.htm – All of the decrees from the Ecumenical Councils. Quite a list.

http://listserv.american.edu/catholic/church/church.html – Documents of the Roman Catholic Church. Self-explanatory!

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~davidcr – Renaissance Liturgical Imprints. This is a wonderful web site containing a database of information about worship books printed before 1601.

Some helpful documents on the Net

http://www.users.csbsju.edu/~roliver/2306onln.html – “Where to find Liturgical information online”, dated August of 1996. Not bad, with a few links peppered throughout the article.

http://www.epas.utoronto.ca:8080/~gnixon/liturgy.html – “The Roman Liturgy”. An interesting history with links in the text.

http://www.paa2000.com/mp60q.htm – “How is the Word of God Celebrated in Your Parish?” This is a checklist of concerns and questions. Developed by Dan Onley.

http://members.aol.com/liturgies/dlec_1.html – “The Effective Lector”. By Edward Horodko.

http://www.erinet.com/aquinas/arch/adoremus.html – A letter from Joe Fessio, SJ, addressed to “Dear Catholic friend” on behalf of Adoremus. Interesting.

Last But Not Least

A number of priests and pastors have begun putting up web pages, sharing their experiences and thoughts on liturgy. A start is http://www.cris.com/~stambros/priests.shtml. Have fun!