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Friday, August 29, 2014

My favorite websites

Over the years, I have visited many websites which present information relevant to my work on the episcopate.  The following sites are my favorites due to the depth and breadth of the information they provide and the scholarship and attention to detail which their creators continue to provide.

The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church

This website is the creation of Salvador Miranda who is, in my estimation, the premier expert on the College of Cardinals. The author provides an encyclopedic presentation on the College of Cardinals and the men who have been called to membership in it. This site is constantly updated and provides visitors with information-rich catalogues on various aspects of the College of Cardinals.  I visit this site daily.

Catholic-Hierarchy.org

The creator/webmaster of this site is David Cheney.  He presents his visitors with a constantly growing database on the dioceses, bishops and other ordinaries of the Roman Catholic Church. With more than 5,200 living bishops and thousands more who have passed on, this website needs the constant updating which its webmaster provides on a daily basis. It is a daunting task, for the appointment, ordination, transfer, and death of every bishop necessitates an update to the site. This is also a site which I visit every day.

Katholische Bischöfe in China

This website is the creation of Andreas Brender, an expert on the Roman Catholic bishops of China. It is an excellent website, providing biographical details of the bishops of China from the nomination of the first bishop up to the present, including the photos or portraits of many of the bishops. This site is a goldmine of information and I visit it often.

Die Apostolische Nachfolge
http://www.apostolische-nachfolge.de/index.htm

This website, created and maintained by Martin Wolters, provides an excellent overview to the structures of the Roman Catholic Church and its cardinals and bishops around the world, as well as the organisms of the Roman Curia and the major superiors of these dicasteries. It also provides information on the apostolic nunciatures and delegations maintained by the Holy See and their respective occupants. One can also find chronological lists of the nominations of bishops and cardinals from 1882 to the present and similar chronologies of their deaths from 1881 to the present. One section of the site is devoted to clandestine bishops appointed and ordained in various countries where the Church has undergone persecution from the twentieth century to the present. I always find something new and interesting when I visit this site.

Den Katolske Kirke
Organisasjon

This website provides links to hundreds of the dioceses and other territorial jurisdictions of the Roman Catholic Church around the world. Created and maintained by Mats Tande, this site provides a readily accessible resource when one is looking for the website of a particular diocese. While the primary website is in Norwegian, readers are provided explanatory links in English, German, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, and French.  This is an excellent resource for the links to diocesan websites worldwide.  I use this site frequently.

The Order of Saint Benedict

This website is dedicated to providing information and resources on the Order of Saint Benedict. If you have an interest in the Benedictines, this is the first site to visit. Information on current activities of the various Benedictine congregations can be found by accessing the “What’s new” tab on the homepage. 

Other interesting websites

Monsignor Mercurio Maria Teresi  http://www.monsignorteresi.it/  is dedicated to the cause of the beatification and canonization of Archbishop Mercurio Maria Teresi, Archbishop of Monreale, Sicily, from 1802 to 1805. The life and works of this good prelate provide excellent reading.

Archbishop Teresi was ordained Archbishop of Monreale on 13 June 1802 in the Cathedral of Monreale by Bishop Francesco Vanni, Bishop of Cefalù, assisted by Archbishop Alfonso Airoldi, Titular Archbishop of Heraclea in Europa, and Bishop Gabriele Maria Gravina, Titular Bishop of Flavias. I wish to express my since thanks to Monsignor Saverio Ferina, Director of the Diocesan Historical Archives of the Archdiocese of Monreale, who was responsible for providing the information concerning Archbishop Teresi’s episcopal ordination as well as similar information concerning the episcopal ordination of Archbishop Teresi’s successor, Archbishop Domenico Benedetto Balsamo, O.S.B. To Monsignor Ferina: cordial saluti e tante grazie!