There is a certain magic—and a distinct weight—in pulling down a hefty, burgundy-clad volume of the New Catholic Encyclopedia from the shelf. Published in 1967, this set sits exactly at the crossroads of tradition and earthquake. It was the first major Catholic reference work to be published after the close of the Second Vatican Council (1965), but much of its content was written during the whirlwind of the Council itself.
Based on the structural mapping of the 1967 edition, page 299 falls within the critical entry on (specifically, the subsection on The Transmission of Divine Revelation ).
No. The 1967 edition still bears the scars of pre-conciliar defensiveness. But page 299 of Volume 14 is a small masterpiece of transition. new catholic encyclopedia -1967- volume 14 page 299
Here is what a reader in 1967 would have found on that page:
What strikes me most about this particular page is its tension. You can feel the author trying to write with the certitude of the 1950s while the windows of the 1960s are blowing open. The language is still scholastic, dense, and Latinized. But the subject is dynamic: Revelation as an encounter with a Person, not just an assent to a fact. There is a certain magic—and a distinct weight—in
The page discusses how Revelation is not merely a book dropped from heaven, but a living reality. It balances the Protestant Sola Scriptura with the Catholic Duo Fontes (two sources: Scripture and Tradition). But interestingly, writing in 1967, the author is already hedging. They acknowledge that Scripture and Tradition are not two separate "containers" of truth, but a single flowing stream.
Page 299 draws a sharp, pre-modernist line: The teaching authority of the Church (the Magisterium) does not sit above the Word of God, but serves it. For a mid-century Catholic, this was a crucial clarification against the charge that the Pope could just "make up" new dogmas. Based on the structural mapping of the 1967
Flipping the Page on Vatican II: A Look at Volume 14, Page 299 (1967)
Today, I opened Volume 14: Pope to Revelation . And I turned specifically to page 299.