Reading and Downloads
The Library
Every work here may be read in full on the site, and each we have prepared is free to download and keep. Reference works we host from public sources are linked to those sources. The shelves below describe each work.
For Offline Study
Manuals of Moral Theology
Summa of Moral Theology (Summa Theologiae Moralis)
The Innsbruck Jesuit manual, for half a century among the most widely used in the seminaries of the world: Volume I on the principles of moral theology — the last end, human acts, laws, conscience, virtues, and sins — printed with the separate treatises On the Sixth Precept and the Use of Matrimony and On Ecclesiastical Penalties; Volume II on the precepts of the theological virtues, of the Decalogue, and of the Church; Volume III on the sacraments, from baptism through matrimony. Compact, orderly, and exact — the manual later writers cite simply as 'Noldin'.
Translated into English for this library from the Latin of the Innsbruck editions: Volume I in its ninth edition (1911), printed with the separate treatises On the Sixth Precept and the Use of Matrimony (twelfth edition) and On Ecclesiastical Penalties (ninth edition); Volume II, On the Precepts, in its ninth edition (1911); Volume III, On the Sacraments, in its fifteenth–sixteenth editions (1923). Each work keeps its own continuous marginal numbering, exactly as printed — citations run 'I, n. 94', 'De sexto, n. 88', 'De poenis, n. 101', 'II, n. 95', 'III, n. 428'. Each volume's own Index of Subjects and printed table of contents are kept, with the index references resolved to the marginal numbers.
A Manual of Moral Theology for English-Speaking Countries
The first manual of moral theology written in English, in its final, sixth edition, revised by the author to accord with the 1917 Code. Two volumes: fundamental moral theology, the virtues, the commandments, and contracts; then the duties of particular states, the sacraments, marriage, censures, irregularities, and indulgences.
Sixth and revised edition (Benziger Brothers, 1928), the text verified and its index and cross-references linked; the English translations of the Latin passages, in italics within parentheses, are editorial and not the author's. In the chapters on the sixth and ninth commandments, where Slater printed the matter in Latin as the manuals did, the English stands in the body and his Latin beside it under “Latin”; five passages there had been left without any English and were translated for this library. His companion volume, Questions of Moral Theology (1915), stands in the library as its own work.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Manual of Moral Theology (Manuale Theologiae Moralis)
A complete Latin manual of the Redemptorist school, written for the seminaries of Holland and Belgium after the Code: Vol. I — the final end, human acts, conscience, law, sin; the virtues and the commandments (faith, hope, charity; religion and the first three commandments; piety; life; justice, contracts and restitution; truthfulness); the commandments of the Church; the duties of states. Vol. II — the sacraments in general and each sacrament, marriage at length, indulgences, and ecclesiastical penalties. Closely follows St. Alphonsus, cites the Code throughout.
Translated into English for this library from the Latin of the Bruges edition (Vol. I 1932, Vol. II 1933). The Latin was taken from an OCR transcription; no page scan of this edition was to hand when the translation was made (page images of both volumes have since been found online and are linked below), so every number and reference was checked against the book itself — its marginal numbering, its own cross-references, its alphabetical index — and 25 slipped references were corrected (those in the index marked †). Every correction has since been read on the printed page: in each case the page carries the slip, and the corrected place is the one the passage requires. The fascicle on the sixth and ninth commandments (De virtute castitatis et de vitiis oppositis, 1928), published apart from the Manual, is included as Volume III, translated from a scan of the printed edition preserved in this library. The Addenda of the printed edition have been incorporated at their places.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Moral Theology: A Complete Course (McHugh & Callan)
The great American manual: a complete course of moral theology in English, built expressly on the plan of St. Thomas — Part I: the last end, human acts, habits, law and conscience; Part II: the theological and moral virtues with their opposed vices and commandments (faith, hope, charity; prudence, justice in all its parts, religion, fortitude, temperance), the duties of particular states, and the duties of men in the use of the sacraments. Written for American conditions, with the 1917 Code cited throughout.
The text of the revised and enlarged edition (ed. Edward P. Farrell, O.P., New York: Wagner, 1958; first edition 1929–30), from the Project Gutenberg transcription (ebook no. 35354), which the transcriber confirmed to be in the United States public domain. The two print volumes (Volume I through section 1625) are combined as in that transcription; the book’s own index to both volumes is included in linked form. The section numbering, the internal cross-references, and the index were verified against themselves in conversion.
Cases of Conscience, Proposed by Cardinal de Lugo, by Fr. Beniamino Elbel, by Fr. Ioannes Petrus Gury and by Other Authors, and Resolved (Casus conscientiae)
Over eight hundred cases of conscience, set by de Lugo, Elbel, Gury and others and resolved by the Roman Jesuit, with many decisions of the Roman Congregations: human acts, conscience and probabilism, laws, sins and the virtues, the Ten Commandments and the precepts of the Church, the duties of laymen, clerics, beneficiaries and religious, the sacraments, matrimony and its impediments, censures, irregularities and indulgences.
Bucceroni's Casus conscientiae propositi a Card. de Lugo, a P. Beniamino Elbel, a P. Ioanne Petro Gury aliisque auctoribus, resoluti, 4th edition augmented (Rome: Augustinian Press, 1901), with the approval of the Roman Province of the Society of Jesus (1900) and the imprimatur of the Master of the Sacred Palace and the Vicegerent of Rome. The English translation is our own, made from the Latin. Its 180 titles number their cases as the print does; his Analytical and Alphabetical Indexes stand at the end, every line and reference a link to the case it names.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Commentaries on Human Acts (Commentarii de Actibus Humanis)
The Roman Jesuit's fourteen commentaries on human acts after St. Thomas: the voluntary and the free, elicited and commanded acts of the will and the other divisions of the voluntary, the impediments of ignorance, concupiscence, fear and violence, the morality of human acts and its sources in object, end and circumstances, and merit.
Bucceroni's Commentarii de actibus humanis, third edition (Rome: Printing House of the Young Workmen at St. Joseph, 1906), with the approbation of the Roman Province of the Society of Jesus (1890). The English translation is our own, made from the Latin: his fourteen Commentaries, each numbering its own paragraphs as the print does (the print itself repeats nn. 54-55 in the Third and n. 19 in the Ninth), with his Analytical Index (his contents) and his Alphabetical Index of Subjects at the end, every reference a link.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Commentaries on the Nature of Moral Theology, on Conscience and Probabilism, on the Fourth Precept, and on the Sixth and Ninth Precepts of the Decalogue (Commentarii)
Four commentaries by the Roman Jesuit: the nature, method and sources of moral theology; conscience and the defence of probabilism with the doctrine of St. Alphonsus; the Fourth Commandment at full length, from parents and children to masters and workers, civil authority, taxes, military service and rebellion; and the Sixth and Ninth Commandments with the use of marriage and the confessor's practice.
Bucceroni's Commentarii: De natura theologiae moralis; De conscientia et de probabilismo; De quarto Decalogi praecepto; De sexto et nono Decalogi praeceptis (Rome: Pontifical Press in the Institute of Pius IX, 1910), with the approbation of the Roman Province of the Society of Jesus (1909). The English translation is our own, made from the Latin: each Commentary numbers its paragraphs straight through as the print does, and his Index stands at the end with every line a link.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Compendium of Moral Theology of Fr. John Peter Gury, S.J., with the Notes of Antonio Ballerini, S.J.
Gury's compendium of moral theology with Antonio Ballerini's critical notes. Volume I: human acts, conscience and probabilism, laws, sins, the theological virtues, the ten commandments and the precepts of the Church, justice and right with restitution, and contracts. Volume II: the duties of particular states (laymen, clerics, religious), the sacraments in general and each of the seven, censures, irregularities, and indulgences with the jubilee.
Compendium theologiae moralis P. Ioannis Petri Gury S.I., ab auctore recognitum et Antonii Ballerini eiusdem Societatis adnotationibus locupletatum, eighth Roman edition (Rome, 1884), two volumes. The English translation is our own, made from the Latin. Ballerini's notes are set beneath the passage that calls them, at their markers; the text the 1884 copy lacks (Volume I, printed pages 478-479) is translated from the 1866 edition, and said so on the page; the few passages and notes the English had passed over are translated from the print, and where the print itself errs its reading is kept and marked. The Index of each volume stands at its end, and the Alphabetical Index of both at the end of Volume II, every head a link.
Institutions of Moral Theology (Institutiones Theologiae Moralis)
Bucceroni's Institutiones Theologiae Moralis, the Roman Jesuit manual ‘according to the doctrine of St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus’: fundamental moral theology, the commandments, justice and contracts, the sacraments, marriage, censures and indulgences, with the appendices of the sixth edition.
Translated into English for this library from the Latin of the sixth, revised and expanded edition (Rome: Vols. I–II 1914, Vols. III–IV 1915). The paragraph numbering runs in two continuous series — nn. 1–1626 across Volumes I–II and nn. 1–1390 across Volumes III–IV — exactly as in the print; n. 397 of the second series is skipped by the print itself. Each volume's analytical index cites the printed pages; those citations were resolved to paragraphs against the page breaks of the original scan. The author's own cross-references (“Cf. n.”) are linked within their numbering series. Where the translation ran several of the print's paragraphs together into one long block, the block has been opened up again for reading: never into more paragraphs than the print itself has for that number (its paragraphing is known from the indents of the printed Latin), and always at a sentence boundary — but the exact points are ours, not the print's.
Moral Enchiridion, Comprising Select Decrees and Definitions of the Holy See, of Ecumenical Councils and of the Sacred Roman Congregations (Enchiridion Morale), Fourth Edition
The decrees and definitions of the Holy See, the councils and the Roman Congregations that Bucceroni's Moral Institutions cite as "E. M.", gathered under the numbers of the Institutions: human acts, conscience and laws, sins and the virtues, the Ten Commandments and the precepts of the Church, the particular states of clerics and religious, the sacraments and matrimony, censures, the Constitutions Apostolicae Sedis, Sacramentum Poenitentiae and Officiorum ac Munerum, irregularity, indulgences and the jubilee.
Bucceroni's Enchiridion morale complectens selecta decreta et definitiones S. Sedis, oecumenicorum conciliorum et SS. RR. Congregationum, fourth edition augmented with the most recent decrees (Rome: Press of the Young Workmen of St. Joseph, 1905), with the approval of the Roman Province of the Society of Jesus (1903) and the imprimatur of the Master of the Sacred Palace and the Vicegerent of Rome. The English translation is our own, made from the Latin. Each head carries, as in the print, the number of his Moral Institutions where the decree is cited, in the Institutions' two series; his Index of Treatises and Alphabetical Index of Subjects stand at the end, every treatise and every number a link.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Moral Enchiridion, and Supplement to the Compendium of Moral Theology of Gury-Ballerini (Enchiridion Morale)
Select decisions of the Holy See and the Roman Congregations, arranged as a supplement to Gury-Ballerini's Compendium for professors and confessors: on conscience and laws, the virtues and the precepts of God and the Church, the states of life, the sacraments, matrimony, censures, indulgences and the jubilee, with an appendix of four commentaries.
Bucceroni's Enchiridion morale et supplementum Compendio theologiae moralis Gury-Ballerini (Rome: Polyglot Press of the S. Congregation de Propaganda Fide, 1887), with the approvals of the Neapolitan and Roman Provinces of the Society of Jesus (1886-1887). The English translation is our own, made from the Latin. Each entry is headed, as in the print, by the number of Gury-Ballerini's Compendium it supplements; his Analytical Index stands at the end, every line a link to the entry it names.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Synopsis of Moral and Pastoral Theology
The Sulpician manual on which generations of seminarians in France and America were formed — moral theology 'according to the mind of St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus, adapted to the morals of the present day,' and among the first of the classic manuals revised to the Code of 1917. Tanquerey writes for the parish priest and confessor: the fundamental moral, the virtues, the commandments and precepts, justice and contracts, Penance and Matrimony treated at full pastoral length, and the duties of the states of life.
Tanquerey's Synopsis Theologiae Moralis et Pastoralis in the Desclée printing of 1922 (Volume I in its ninth edition, Volumes II and III in their seventh), carefully revised according to the Code of 1917 — the manual of the Sulpician seminaries, in three volumes: I. Penance, Matrimony, and Holy Orders; II. the fundamental moral with the virtues and precepts; III. justice, contracts, and the obligations of the states of life. The English translation is our own, made from the 1922 Latin (the archive.org scans of all three volumes); the civil-law Supplement for Great Britain and the United States at the end of Volume III was printed in English in the 1922 issue and names no compiler and collated against it in samples throughout; Tanquerey's own section numbers n. 1, n. 2… are kept as the anchors of citation, his footnotes stand at their in-text markers in all three volumes, and his alphabetical indexes are restored with every reference a link.
A Handbook of Moral Theology (Koch–Preuss)
Anton Koch's Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, made English and considerably enlarged by Arthur Preuss: the whole of moral theology in five volumes — morality, its subject, norm and object; sin and the means of grace; man's duties to himself, to God, and to his fellowmen. The general index to all five volumes is on the site, every reference a link.
Koch–Preuss, A Handbook of Moral Theology, in the five B. Herder volumes (third revised edition, 1925–1928; volume V second edition, 1924), transcribed page by page from the University of Toronto and Internet Archive scans with every word preserved; the connected Latin and Greek passages are given in our own literal English.
On Chastity and on the Contrary Vices: A Doctrinal and Moral Treatise
The Gregorian's professor of moral theology on chastity, the most thorough treatment of the matter in the library: an anthropological introduction (sexual physiology, modesty, hygiene, impotence and sterility, the consummation of marriage); the doctrine of chastity in itself, in marriage and in virginity, defended against the naturalists and secularists of his day, with the formation of the young and the restoring of a pure life; then the casuistry of the acts of spouses, of the betrothed and of sins outside marriage, the counsels to the confessor, and twelve theses.
Vermeersch's De castitate et de vitiis contrariis: tractatus doctrinalis et moralis, second edition, enlarged and corrected (Rome: Gregorian University; Bruges: Charles Beyaert, 1921), the edition his own bibliography cites, with the imprimaturs of the Roman Province of the Society of Jesus, the Master of the Sacred Palace and the Vicegerent of Rome. The English translation is our own, made from the Latin page by page: his marginal numbers 1-432 (with 69 bis and 418 bis) are the anchors of citation, his notes stand at the foot of the passage that calls them, his Analytical Index and Theses stand at the front and his Alphabetical Index of Subjects at the end, every reference a link.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Theologia Moralis: Principles — Responses — Counsels
The Gregorian's professor of moral theology, and the principal drafter of the 1917 Code's moral provisions, in his own complete course: fundamental moral theology, the virtues at work, persons, the sacraments, and the Church's precepts and censures — principles first, then the responses and counsels of a master casuist.
Vermeersch's Theologia Moralis: Principia — Responsa — Consilia (Museum Lessianum; Beyaert, Bruges, and the Gregorian University, Rome; three volumes, 1922–1924), in our own literal English translation from the Latin, made page by page with every word preserved: his own paragraph numbers are the anchors of citation, his Analytical Index stands at each volume's front with every line a link, and his Alphabetical Index of Matters is restored with every marginal-number reference a link.
Institutiones Morales Alphonsianae
The moral doctrine of St. Alphonsus adapted for the schools by the Redemptorist Clement Marc: the whole course — conscience, laws, human acts, sins and virtues, the commandments of God and of the Church, justice, contracts and the states of life, then the sacraments, censures and irregularities — closing with the appendix on the Constitution Officiorum ac Munerum and the Supplement reading every treatise against the new Code of Canon Law, section by section and canon by canon.
Marc's Institutiones Morales Alphonsianae, seu Doctoris Ecclesiae S. Alphonsi Mariae de Ligorio Doctrina Moralis ad Usum Scholarum Accommodata (fifteenth edition, Rome; two volumes, with the Supplement on the Code of Canon Law), in our own literal English translation from the Latin, made with every word preserved: his own section numbers — one series across both volumes, 1 to 2333 — are the anchors of citation, each volume's printed contents stands hosted with its pages and numbers, and the cumulative Alphabetical Index of Matters closing Volume II is restored with every reference a link.
Manuale Theologiae Moralis
The Fribourg Dominican's complete manual after the principles of St. Thomas: the last end, human acts, law, conscience and the moral systems, sin and the virtues (Volume I); justice and right, restitution, contracts, religion and the remaining moral virtues (Volume II); and the sacraments, censures, indulgences and matrimony (Volume III), with a brief catalogue of the moral theologians.
Prümmer's Manuale Theologiae Moralis according to the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas, for the use of schools, in three volumes, in the eighth edition (1935). A fresh English translation prepared for Morals of the Church. His own marginal numbers, afresh in each volume, are the anchors of citation; each volume's Index of Parts stands at its head with every line a link, and each volume's Alphabetical Index of Matters at its end, the third covering all three volumes, with every reference a link to the numbered paragraph it cites.
Summa Theologiae Moralis
The Angelicum's Dominican professor of moral theology in his complete course after the mind of St. Thomas: the principles (the last end, human acts, conscience, law, sin, the virtues, and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity), the moral virtues with justice, restitution, and contracts at full length, and the sacraments with matrimony under the Code of 1917.
Merkelbach's Summa Theologiae Moralis, according to the mind of St. Thomas and the norm of the new law, edited for the use of schools, in three volumes: I. On Principles and II. On the Moral Virtues in the second edition, revised and emended (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1935), and III. On the Sacraments in the eleventh edition, enlarged and emended (Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1962). The English translation of Volumes I and II is our own, made from the Latin. His own paragraph numbers are the anchors of citation, each volume's Analytical Index (his printed contents) stands at its end with every line a link, and his Alphabetical Index of notable matters with every reference a link to the numbered paragraph it cites.
Theologia Moralis Sancti Alphonsi: Reduced into a Compendium
St. Alphonsus's moral theology reduced to a compendium for the American clergy by the Redemptorist professor at Ilchester: the whole Alphonsian system — conscience and the equiprobabilism of the saint, laws, sins, the virtues, the commandments of God and the Church, justice and contracts, the states of life, and the sacraments — with the condemned propositions, the American faculties, and the saint's own doctrine prefixed, every section answering to the numbers by which the manuals cite him.
Konings's Theologia Moralis Novissimi Ecclesiae Doctoris S. Alphonsi, in Compendium Redacta, et Usui Venerabilis Cleri Americani Accommodata (fifth edition, Benziger Brothers, New York, 1885; two volumes), in our own literal English translation from the Latin, made with every word preserved: his own section numbers — one series across both volumes, 1 to 1801 — are the anchors of citation, his printed index of Volume I stands hosted with every line a link (the print gave Volume II no contents of its own), and his Alphabetical Index closing Volume II is restored with every number a link.
Compendium of Moral Theology
The Woodstock manual of moral theology for American seminaries, Sabetti's recasting of Gury and Ballerini brought into line with the 1917 Code by Barrett: human acts, conscience and probabilism, laws, sins and virtues, the commandments and the precepts of the Church, justice and contracts, the obligations of states of life, the sacraments, censures and penalties, irregularities, and indulgences, with American councils, faculties, and practice throughout.
Sabetti-Barrett, Compendium Theologiae Moralis: Gury's Compendium, annotated by Ballerini, drawn up in a briefer form for the seminaries of the United States by Aloysius Sabetti, S.J., of Woodstock College; thirty-second edition, conformed to the new Code of Canon Law by Timothy Barrett, S.J. (the sixth edition after the Code; New York and Cincinnati: Frederick Pustet, 1929). The English translation is our own, made from the Latin: the twenty-one treatises in two volumes with the author's marginal numbers 1-1061 and his numbered Questions, the Addenda, and the Index of Quinquennial Faculties; and at the end, as in the print, his Index of the treatises, his List of Canons, and the General Alphabetical Index, every number a link.
Summa Summae S. Thomae (Billuart)
The standard eighteenth-century Dominican commentary on St. Thomas, in the author's own compendium: the whole Prima Secundae — human acts, conscience (with three dissertations on probabilism against the laxists and a defense of moderate probabiliorism), passions and virtues, sins, law, and grace — and the Secunda Secundae from faith through hope, charity (almsgiving, fraternal correction, scandal), and the great treatise on right, ownership, and restitution. The manuals in this library cite Billuart by name on their hardest questions; here he can be read in full, in English with the Latin at hand.
Billuart's own compendium of his great commentary on the Summa of St. Thomas, in the two volumes on moral matter: Tomus II on the Prima Secundae (human acts, conscience and the moral systems, the passions and virtues in general, sins, law, and grace) and Tomus III on the Secunda Secundae through the treatise on right and justice. The Latin is the Schola Thomistica transcription, taken for Tomus II from the e-rara scan of the Zurich copy (1884 printing) and for Tomus III from the Vivès edition (Paris, 1887); the English translation of the text is theirs also (AI-assisted, human-reviewed), given by them to the public domain. The full parallel Latin is kept beside the English throughout; the English headings of the contents are our own. Not included: the later editor's appendix on middle knowledge at the end of Tomus II (not Billuart's work); the tract De regulis fidei of Tomus III (controversy theology, set aside for now); and the continuation of the justice treatise, which the printer carried into Tomus IV, a volume not yet in this library. Four footnotes whose closing bracket the transcription lost were repaired against the parallel language; in one English footnote (on the Clementina Exivi) the inner quotation breaks off in the source, where the Latin is complete.
Treatise on Christian Marriage
The Gregorian's Jesuit dogmatic theologian on marriage in thirty-five theses: its essence as a contract and a society, marriage as a sacrament and the inseparability of contract and sacrament among Christians, unity and indissolubility, and the Church's exclusive power over impediments and dispensations, with a documentary appendix of the councils and popes from the first centuries to the Fourth Lateran Council.
Palmieri's Tractatus de matrimonio christiano, second edition, enlarged and corrected (Prato: Giachetti, Sons and Co., 1897), with the approbation of the Roman Province of the Society of Jesus (1896) and the imprimatur of Prato (1897). The English translation is our own, made from the Latin: his thirty-five theses with their points, the Parergon on the nuptials of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph, and his Conspectus of the Church's decrees and canons on marriage down to 1215, one council or letter to a division; his Index stands at the end with every line a link.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Christian Theology, Dogmatic and Moral, Volume III: On the Decalogue
The full treatise, from Concina's twelve-volume Theologia, on the first two commandments: adoration and the worship of the saints, images and relics; superstition, divination, magic and witchcraft; tempting God, sacrilege and blasphemy; vows, their matter, obligation, invalidation, dispensation and commutation; and the oath, with his long treatment of lying and of mental restriction against the more recent casuists.
Volume III, In Decalogum, of Concina's Theologia christiana dogmatico-moralis (Rome, 1749; sold at Venice by Simone Occhi): Books III-V, the whole of the volume's text. The volume's own contents of its Dissertations, Chapters and Questions, and its alphabetical index of subjects, were translated for this site from the print. The English translation is from a friend of this site who wished to remain anonymous. Concina's paragraph numbers are kept as he printed them, beginning again in every chapter; the paragraphing otherwise follows the translation, and may differ from the print in places. Passages the English lacked, or where it departed from the print, were translated for this site from the Latin, and are marked (ed.).
Christian Theology, Dogmatic and Moral, in Compendium
The Dominican champion of probabiliorism in his own compendium of his great Theologia: the Apparatus (Scripture, tradition, the Church, councils and the authority of the Fathers and theologians), conscience and the case against probabilism, the theological virtues and religion (Books I-III); justice, restitution, contracts and usury, the sacraments, penance and the confessor, extreme unction, orders, simony and benefices, matrimony, censures and the religious state (Books IX-XIII). Each matter opens with the propositions the Holy See condemned and the lax opinions of the casuists.
Concina's own abridgment of his Theologia christiana dogmatico-moralis, published after his death: Books I-III from the first of the four tomes printed at Venice in 1761 (from the press of St. Thomas Aquinas), with the printer's preface and Concina's Declaration; Books IX-XIII from the second of the two volumes printed at Bologna in 1760 (for Simone Occhi, bookseller of Venice). The two printings give one text. Books IV-VIII are not yet on the site. The English translation is from a friend of this site who wished to remain anonymous. Concina's paragraph numbers are kept as he printed them, beginning again in every chapter; the paragraphing otherwise follows the translation, and may differ from the print in places. A chapter the English lacked, the contents of both tomes, and the printer's catalogue of Concina's works were translated for this site from the print, and are marked (ed.); the lines of Tome I's contents for Books IV-VIII will be shown when those Books are added.
Palladium Theologicum, Tome V: On the Virtues
A seventeenth-century Franciscan course of scholastic theology in its tome on the virtues, disputed after St. Bonaventure in dialogue with St. Thomas, the Scotists and the great Jesuit authors: the theological virtues and their vices; prudence; justice, restitution, homicide, theft and the persons of a trial; contracts, from promise and sale to usury, exchange and testaments; religion, prayer and the Divine Office; vows and the religious state, oaths, feasts, superstition and simony; fortitude and temperance with the sins against them; and the states of perfection, of bishops, of regular prelates, and of the active and contemplative life.
The fifth tome of Bontempi's Palladium theologicum, seu tota theologia scholastica in septem tomos distributa, ad intimam mentem D. Bonaventurae (Lyons: Laurent Arnaud, Pierre Borde, Jean and Pierre Arnaud, 1676), the Capuchin's course of scholastic theology after the mind of St. Bonaventure, in its tome on the virtues. The Latin is the Schola Thomistica transcription of the Google scan of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale copy; the English translation of the text is theirs also, made with their AI translator and given by them to the public domain. The full parallel Latin is kept beside the English throughout; the English headings, with the book's own numbers, are ours, and the arrangement of disputations, questions, subquestions and doubts follows the author's printed index. Three pages (102, 104 and 156) are missing from the only scan of this volume available to us, and a note stands at each place; ten pages the scan took twice are given once. Not included: the dedication, approbations and the two-page Apparatus to the Secunda Secundae at the front, and the author's indexes at the back (of the disputations, of places of Scripture, and of things and words).
Law of the Church
The 1917 Code of Canon Law
The Codex Iuris Canonici promulgated by Benedict XV on Pentecost 1917 — the law of the Latin Church that the moral manuals of the era cite on nearly every page. All 2,414 canons in a fresh English translation, with the corrected Latin one click away and, for each canon, its correlation to the 1983 Code.
Bound with it: Benedict XIV, Sacramentum Poenitentiae — its text is here in English and Latin.
A fresh English translation prepared for Morals of the Church, with the corrected Latin text.
The Decretum of Gratian (Concordia discordantium canonum)
Gratian’s Concordance of Discordant Canons (c. 1140), the first part of the Corpus Iuris Canonici: 101 Distinctions on law and the clergy, 36 Causae with their Questions — among them the Treatise on Penance — and the five Distinctions on Consecration, with Gratian’s own reasoning between the canons. Cited by the manuals as “c. 8, C. 23, q. 5” or “c. 6, D. 30”. Every canon in English with its Latin one click away and its column in Friedberg’s edition.
Our own English translation, made from Friedberg’s edition of the Corpus Iuris Canonici (vol. I, the Decretum, Leipzig, 1879), with Friedberg’s Latin beside it; under each canon its column in Friedberg, linked to the page image.
The Decretals of Gregory IX (Liber Extra)
The five books of decretals compiled by St. Raymond of Peñafort at the command of Gregory IX and promulgated in 1234 by the bull Rex pacificus: 1,971 chapters under 185 titles — judges, judgment, clergy, marriage, crimes — the body of the Church’s law until 1917, cited by the manuals as “c. 1, X, de sponsalibus”. Every chapter in English with its Latin one click away.
Our own English translation, made from Friedberg’s edition of the Corpus Iuris Canonici (Leipzig, 1879–1881; vol. II, the Decretal collections, in the unaltered Graz reprint), with the Latin beside it.
The Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII
The Sixth Book of the Decretals, promulgated by Boniface VIII in 1298 to stand beside the five books of Gregory IX: its prooemium, the 359 chapters under their titles in five books, and the eighty-eight Rules of Law that close it — cited by the manuals as “c. 1, in VI°”. Every chapter in English with its Latin one click away.
Our own English translation, made from Friedberg’s edition of the Corpus Iuris Canonici (Leipzig, 1879–1881; vol. II, the Decretal collections, in the unaltered Graz reprint), with the Latin beside it. The Latin text is the LombardPress / Scholastic Commentaries and Texts Archive transcription of Friedberg, corrected against his print, used under its CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Cases of Conscience
Cases of Conscience for English-Speaking Countries, Volume I
A hundred and twenty-six cases put and solved — the drunkard who says he can no longer restrain himself, the man who prefers one creditor before surrendering his goods, the secret a confessor may not use — arranged as the manuals are: human acts, conscience, law, sin, faith and charity, then the commandments one by one, restitution and contracts. Slater set each case in Latin and answered it in English; the cases stand here in English too. The companion in practice to his Manual, and the first volume of the library's casebooks.
Slater's Cases of Conscience for English-Speaking Countries, Volume I (Benziger Brothers, 1911), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved; the Latin of the cases, which Slater set in Latin, stands here in a literal English translation made for this library, and the Latin titles, formulas and technical terms are kept as he printed them.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Cases of Conscience for English-Speaking Countries, Volume II
A hundred and forty further cases put and solved, carrying the work through the matter the first volume left: the precepts of the Church, the sacraments, matrimony, and the duties of particular states. Slater set each case in Latin and answered it in English; the cases stand here in English too.
Slater's Cases of Conscience for English-Speaking Countries, Volume II (Benziger Brothers, 1912), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved; the Latin of the cases, which Slater set in Latin, stands here in a literal English translation made for this library, and the Latin titles, formulas and technical terms are kept as he printed them.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
The Casuist: A Collection of Cases in Moral and Pastoral Theology
Four hundred and nine cases of conscience, plainly stated and plainly solved: the convert's doubtful baptism, the defrauded insurance company, the mass stipend, the mixed marriage, the medical secret — the questions a priest actually meets, worked through by the casuists of Wagner's Homiletic Monthly.
The Casuist (Joseph F. Wagner, New York; five volumes, 1906–1917), the cases gathered from The Homiletic Monthly and its circle — Volume IV in Stanislaus Woywod's edition revised to the new Canon Law, Volume V prepared and edited by John A. McHugh, O.P. Transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved; Woywod's later corrections stand labeled at the cases they update, and both General Indexes of Subjects — Volume III's for the first three volumes and Volume V's for all five — are restored with every reference a link.
Catechisms
The Catechism of the Council of Trent (The Roman Catechism)
The catechism the Council of Trent decreed and St. Pius V issued — the Church's own summary of doctrine for parish priests, and the authority our manuals cite on nearly every tract (Cat. Rom.): the Creed article by article; the seven Sacraments; the Ten Commandments; and the Lord's Prayer petition by petition. In the McHugh–Callan translation of 1923, the same Dominican Fathers whose Moral Theology this library shelves.
The McHugh–Callan translation (New York: Wagner, 1923), given from the 1923 print, with the translators' Introduction, their Sermon Program for the Sundays and feasts, the four Appendixes, all the footnotes, and the Index of Subjects, whose page references lead to the passages they cite. The print numbers no paragraphs (its index cites pages), so the paragraph marks ¶ 1, ¶ 2… are ours, for citation.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
The Catechism Explained: An Exhaustive Exposition of the Christian Religion
A practical manual for the preacher, the catechist, the teacher and the family, made attractive by illustrations, comparisons and quotations from the Scriptures, the Fathers and other writers. Its second part is a full treatment of the moral life — the Ten Commandments one by one with the sins against each, restitution, oaths and vows, the good name, the occasions of sin, and the seven principal virtues set against the seven principal vices — and its third part treats the Mass, the sacraments and prayer, with the impediments to matrimony and the duties of the married.
The Benziger eighth edition (New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, 1899): from the original of Rev. Francis Spirago, Professor of Theology, edited by Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J. Every word has been collated against that edition's own plates, whose readings govern throughout — spellings, compounds the type sets open or hyphenated, and two passages and a scripture quotation that had been displaced are all the print's. The alphabetical index is the book's own, read from the plates, with every reference a link. The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are given as the book carries them; the leaf is absent from the scan of the eighth edition and was read from a clean plate of another 1899 Benziger printing, the approval being of the text and granted once.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Treatises on Particular Subjects
On the Prohibition and Censorship of Books (De prohibitione et censura librorum)
Vermeersch's canonico-moral dissertation on the law of forbidden books: the history of prohibition and prior censorship, the force and interpretation of the laws then in force, a commentary article by article on Leo XIII's General Decrees — what may be read, kept, published, sold or translated, and by whose leave — the penalties, and the forms and catalogues, with the constitutions of Leo XIII and Benedict XIV in full.
Translated into English for this library from the Latin of the fourth edition, enlarged and rearranged (Rome: Desclée, Lefebvre and Co., 1906), which carries the imprimatur of Albertus Lepidi, O.P., Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace, and of Joseph Ceppetelli, Vicegerent. The author's own paragraph numbering (nn. 1–168) is kept and is what the site cites; his marginal headings are set beside the passages they gloss, and his footnotes are given at the foot of each paragraph. The publisher's advertisement of other books, printed at the end of the volume, is not part of the work and is omitted.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
What Is Marriage? A Catechism Arranged According to the Encyclical “Casti Connubii” of Pope Pius XI
Vermeersch's catechism on Christian marriage, drawn entirely from Pius XI's encyclical Casti Connubii and written for priests and the educated laity: 188 questions and answers on God's part and man's part in marriage; the three blessings — children, conjugal fidelity, the sacrament; the attack on each of them, from birth control and abortion to divorce; and the remedies, ending with the Holy Father's closing prayer.
The published English translation by T. Lincoln Bouscaren, S.J. (New York: The America Press, 1932), transcribed for this library from the printed book and collated page by page against the scan. The author's 188 numbered questions are kept and are what the site cites; the footnotes are given at the foot of each question.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Moral Principles and Medical Practice: The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence
Coppens’ lectures on medical ethics for physicians: the moral law as the basis of medical jurisprudence; craniotomy and abortion and the absolute inviolability of innocent life; the errors of materialist science on the soul; venereal excesses and the counsel of continence; the physician’s professional rights and duties; the nature and legal bearing of insanity; and hypnotism with the border-land of science.
The first edition (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1897), from the Project Gutenberg transcription (ebook no. 18616). Nine lectures delivered to the students of the John A. Creighton Medical College, Omaha. Only Lecture I is paragraph-numbered in print (1–8, omitting 4, as in the original); elsewhere the paragraph marks ¶ 1, ¶ 2… are ours, for citation. The transcriber’s three marked corrections are kept, marked with an editorial dagger.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Pastoral Questions
A Dominican professor of the Angelicum writes for confessors and pastors, question by question: chastity and its sins with the physiology a confessor must know, embryology and the operations of obstetrics (Caesarean section, embryotomy, abortion, ectopic pregnancy), baptism of the unborn, eugenic sterilization, the many kinds of penitents — children, the scrupulous, the dying, the lax, the devout — the confessor's power, duties and abuses, the sins of each state of life and the capital sins; with Salmon's full pastoral treatise on Matrimony under the Code of 1917.
Merkelbach's Quaestiones Pastorales, "proposed for the benefit of the clergy" (Liège: La Pensée Catholique; Paris, Amsterdam, Paderborn, Turin-Rome), in the printings bound together in the scans our translation was made from: I. On Chastity and Lust (fourth edition, 1936); II. On Embryology and the Administration of Baptism (second edition, 1928); IIbis. On Embryology and Sterilization (1937); III. On Various Categories of Penitents (second edition, 1933); IV. On the Minister of Penance and His Duties (second edition, 1935); VI. On Various Sins to Be Healed in Sacramental Confession (1935); and VII. On the Sacrament of Matrimony (1930), the one fascicle of the series written not by Merkelbach but by his confrère Ceslaus-M. Salmon, O.P., of the Louvain Studium. Fascicle V, on the parts of Penance, is not among them and has not been found in any scan. The English translation is our own, made from the Latin; the author's own contents at the back of each fascicle stand with every line a link, and Salmon's Alphabetical Index of Subjects is restored with every reference a link to his numbered section.
Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law
The Stonyhurst manual of moral philosophy, in English from Rickaby's own pen: the ground the moral theology manuals build on, argued from reason — happiness and the last end, human acts, the passions, habits and the virtues; duty, the Eternal and Natural Law, conscience and Probabilism, sanction, and the case against utilitarianism; then natural law applied — duties to God, the preservation of life, truth-telling, charity, rights and contracts and usury, marriage, property, and the State with war and civil liberty. Each section closes with his readings from St. Thomas, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero and Suarez, the Summa citations linked into this library.
The fourth edition (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1918), of the Stonyhurst Philosophical Series, from the Project Gutenberg transcription (ebook no. 8103). Rickaby's own paragraph numbers are the anchors; where the print itself skips a number (Temperance has no 2, the Worship of God no 5 — verified against the 1918 scan) the gap is kept as printed, and unnumbered stretches (the prefaces, the Addenda, the Appendix, the Index) carry our editorial marks ¶ 1, ¶ 2… for citation. The transcriber's "[Greek: …]" transliterations stand as transcribed — the print's Greek type was not reproduced. The printed Index is kept; its page references, which the transcription omitted, were restored from the 1918 scan itself (each number read against the page images) and resolved to the paragraphs they cite, so the index joins the site-wide alphabetical index.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
A Brief Text-Book of Moral Philosophy
The American Jesuit college text on ethics: human acts, conscience, law, rights and duties individual and social — the philosophical groundwork the manuals presuppose, stated briefly for students. A companion shelf-mate to Rickaby's fuller Moral Philosophy.
Coppens's A Brief Text-Book of Moral Philosophy (1895), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved; the author's own numbered paragraphs are kept as the anchors of citation.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Studies and Essays
New Questions, Old Answers: Catholic Morals and Natural Family Planning
A licensed moral theologian's examination of the morality of Natural Family Planning: the marital debt, the magisterial sources, what counts as a just cause for spacing births, and the spiritual and pastoral consequences — argued from St. Thomas, the classical authorities, and the manuals this library shelves. Our warm thanks to Eamonn Clark, who gives this study freely.
A modern study, hosted whole with the author's permission — not one of the classic approved manuals, but a living moral theologian's argument from them and from St. Thomas. The author gives the book freely and asks those who can to support his work; his donation link and contact stand in the text as he printed them. © 2025 Eamonn Clark.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Tolerance
The whole doctrine of tolerance in one treatise: what charity and truth each demand, tolerance in private life and in public, the coercive power of the Church examined historically, and the modern State weighed — by the Louvain master whose treatise on forbidden books this library already carries.
Vermeersch's Tolerance in the 1913 English translation of W. Humphrey Page (R. & T. Washbourne), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Socialism
Rickaby's short, sharp pamphlet on socialism — what it claims, what is true in the claim, and where it breaks against human nature and the right of property. The popular companion to the manuals' treatment of ownership and the wage.
Rickaby's Socialism (Catholic Truth Society, London, fourth edition revised), transcribed from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Socialism: Its Theoretical Basis and Practical Application
Cathrein's full study of socialism: its history down to 1904 in Europe and America, the Marxian theory of history and of value, its quarrel with religion, and why the socialist commonwealth cannot be made to work. Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum and Graves de Communi Re are printed in the appendix. The larger study behind the manuals' treatment of ownership and the wage.
Cathrein's Socialism (Benziger Brothers, New York, 1904: the authorized translation of the eighth German edition, revised and enlarged by Victor F. Gettelmann, S.J.), transcribed from the print with every word preserved. Where the printed index gives a wrong page, the reference is linked to the right page and marked †; six misprints of the print itself are corrected, each marked † with what the book prints.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Questions of Moral Theology
Twenty-three questions treated at length that the Manual could only state — the just price, liberalism and usury, deals in options and futures, modern sociology, eugenics, scruples, sacrilege, the task of liberal theology — articles Slater wrote for the Irish and American ecclesiastical reviews and gathered into a book, his fuller mind on the disputed points of his day.
Slater's Questions of Moral Theology (Benziger Brothers, 1915), the companion volume of discussions to his Manual, transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved; the substantive Latin passages are given in the transcriber's literal English, the originals preserved in the project ledger.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
A Short History of Moral Theology
The discipline's own story told briefly by the author of the first English manual — the moral teaching of the Fathers, the penitential books, the Scholastics, the casuists, and the state of moral theology in Slater's own day. A natural first book for a reader who wonders where the manuals of this library came from.
Slater's A Short History of Moral Theology (Benziger Brothers, 1909), transcribed page by page from the print (the archive.org scan) with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
The Foundation of True Morality
Slater against the moralists of feeling and of mere convention: why morality must rest on human nature, reason, and God — with chapters on legalism, casuistry, and the charge that Catholic moral teaching is external and mechanical.
Slater's The Foundation of True Morality (Benziger Brothers, 1920), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
On the Morals of To-Day
Essays on the moral questions of the hour as Slater saw them after the Great War — birth prevention, divorce, the decay of honesty, dress and amusements, the press — each measured against the unchanging rule.
Slater's On the Morals of To-Day (Benziger Brothers, 1920), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Religion and Human Interests
What religion has to do with the rest of life: Slater on religion and the individual, the family, the State, science, art, and social reform — the case that faith is not one interest beside others but the ground of them all.
Slater's Religion and Human Interests (R. & T. Washbourne, 1918), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Back to Morality
Slater's last call to his contemporaries: purity and dignity in morals, the sanctity of contracts, truthfulness, reverence, and the recovery of conscience in public life.
Slater's Back to Morality (Benziger Brothers, 1925), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Public School Education
A Redemptorist's case, argued at the height of the American school controversy of the 1870s, that the education of children belongs to the family and the Church and not to the State — the duty of Catholic parents, the rights the author held the common-school system to violate, and the bishops' and popes' teaching on mixed and godless schooling.
Müller's Public School Education (Patrick Donahoe, Boston, 1872), from the Project Gutenberg transcription of the print (ebook #28036), with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Apology for the Doctrine of the Jesuits
A Jesuit historian's answer to the Bishop of Arras, who in 1703 censured propositions from the German casuist Gobat: how the Society governs the moral teaching of its writers, and what its theologians in fact hold on the precept of the love of God, on 'philosophical sin', and on probability, set against the charge that the errors of a few are the doctrine of the Order.
Daniel's Apologie pour la doctrine des Jésuites, envoyée à Monseigneur d'Arras à l'occasion de la censure qu'il a faite du livre d'un casuiste allemand (Liège: Daniel Moumal, 1704). The English translation is our own, made page by page from the print; his margin references stand in square brackets where he set them.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Practical and Spiritual Guidance
The True Spouse of Jesus Christ
The Doctor of Moral Theology to the nun — and to every soul vowed to God: the vocation examined, the virtues of her state one by one, mortification, prayer, and perseverance. Under the patronage of the saint whose name this library bears.
St. Alphonsus's The True Spouse of Jesus Christ in the Grimm edition of the Ascetical Works (second edition revised, 1929, Redemptorist Fathers), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved; the saint's own footnotes stand at their places, and the edition's index of subjects is restored with every reference a link.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Guide for Catholic Young Women
The Paulist missionary’s counsels for working girls — prayer, confession and communion, honesty in service, company-keeping and marriage, purity, cheerfulness, and the sanctification of ordinary work — a whole rule of life for one state of life.
Deshon's Guide for Catholic Young Women: Especially for Those Who Earn Their Own Living (thirty-fifth edition, 1910), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
You and Yours: Practical Talks on Home Life
Plain talks for the household — the home, husband and wife, parents and children, work and recreation, sorrow and religion in the family — the moral life of the hearth, spoken simply.
Scott's You and Yours: Practical Talks on Home Life (P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1921), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Four-Square; or, The Cardinal Virtues
Eight addresses to young men on prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance — Rickaby the philosopher speaking plainly, the cardinal virtues as the four walls of a manly Christian character.
Rickaby's Four-Square; or, The Cardinal Virtues: Addresses to Young Men (1908), transcribed page by page from the print with every word preserved.
Read · Download PDF · EPUB
Sources and Reference Works
The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas
The Summa Theologica in the English Dominican Fathers' translation, complete with the Supplement — the source the manuals cite on nearly every question of principle (S. Th. I-II, II-II…).
English translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, second and revised edition (Benziger Bros., 1920-22; public domain). Text from the Catena corpus (github.com/AlvaroBalbin/catena, MIT-licensed data layout), which captured it verbatim from newadvent.org/summa (retrieved 2026-07-09).
The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent
The dogmatic and reform decrees of the Council of Trent, session by session, with every canon and chapter addressable — cited by the manuals as Trid. sess. 14, can. 7.
English translation by the Rev. James Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848), the standard Catholic English text of the Council's decrees.
Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum (Sources of Catholic Dogma)
The standard handbook of the creeds, definitions, and declarations of the Church, from the Apostles' Creed to the modern popes, in the older numbering that the classic manuals cite (Denz., D., DB). Each entry shows its modern (DS) number.
English text in the older (Denzinger-Bannwart) numbering, as cited by the manuals; concordance to the modern DS numbering shown with each entry.
The Holy Bible (Douay-Rheims)
The Douay-Rheims Bible in the Challoner revision — the English Scripture the manuals quote, with every verse addressable so that citations such as Ecclus. xxxi. 10 link to the text.
Text from Project Gutenberg eBook #8300, "The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete" (Challoner revision; public domain), converted by scripts/convert-bible.ts. Chapter arguments and Challoner’s notes omitted; verse text and Douay numbering kept as printed.