Catholic Dictionary: An Abridged and Updated Edition of Modern Catholic Dictionary - Kindle edition by Hardon, John. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

I purchased one of these for myself and was very impressed with it. I purchased 2 more, one for each of my children's families. They have children school age and thought it would be very helpful. I purchased a Catholic dictionary before that was small and had nothing in it. This is an excellent dictionary for anyone wanting to look up Catholic terms.

It was not as complete as I would have liked. Only about half of the words I research are in the publication. I still have to go on line for most of the help I need. However, the words I do find have great explanations. Which is why I gave it a four out of five. It was worth getting and will remain in my reference library.

This book is really nice for those going through RCIA. It makes many theological ideas and words easy to understand for the average layman.

Love the Catholic Dictionary. Great resource for any Catholic reading the bible. Clarifies terms that might be stumbling block. I use it frequently and find myself perusing through other terms other than the one I was searching.

Great reference dictionary on Catholic terminology, this book by the late Jesuit Father John A. Hardon is well worth keeping on your shelf if you want to learn more about Catholicism. It is an updated and abridged edition of "Modern Catholic Dictionary," long out of print, and is longer than the "Pocket Catholic Dictionary" that is still in print as a shorter version of the original work. There's only a minor oddity about the book: Who updated it? Father Hardon died in 2000, long before Pope Benedict was elected, but this book includes an undated introduction that mentions all the popes from Peter to Benedict XVI -- and this introduction is directly attributed to the late Father Hardon! In all honesty, I would love to know exactly what in this book was "updated" and who updated it, so I find it strange that the publisher didn't print a new preface with that information while simply reprinting Father Hardon's original introduction without the Benedict XVI reference. This is a small quibble in an otherwise excellent book, but it's a curious thing.