The Teaching of the Catholic Church (Vols. 1 & 2 set)

The Teaching of the Catholic Church (Arouca Press Reprint) Edited by Canon George D. Smith, D.D., Ph.D. Originally published in 1949. 

Volume 1 Contents: Faith and Revealed Truth | An Outline of Catholic Teaching | The One God | The Blessed Trinity | The Holy Ghost | God the Creator | Divine Providence | The Angels | Man and His Destiny | The Fall of Man and Original Sin | Jesus Christ, God and Man | Jesus Christ, The Model of Manhood | Jesus Christ, Man of Sorrows | Christ, Priest and Redeemer | Mary, Mother of God | Sanctifying Grace | Actual Grace | The Supernatural Virtues Contributions by Rev. J. P. Arendzen · Rev. John M. T. Barton · Msgr. Canon C. Cronin · Rev. M.C. D’Arcy · Rev. Richard Downey · Rev. T. E. Flynn · Archbishop Goodier · Dom Aelred Graham · Rev. H. Harrington · Dom Justin McCann · Dom J. B. McLaughlin · Rev. E. J. Mahoney · Rev. C. C. Martindale · Rev. B. V. Miller · Rev. J. P. Murphy · Msgr. Canon E. Myers · Rev. A. L. Reys · Rev. G. D. Smith · Rev. E. Towers · Rev. O. R. Vassall-Phillips · Abbot Anscar Vonier

Volume 2 Contents: The Mystical Body of Christ | The Church on Earth | The Sacramental System | The Sacrament of Baptism | The Sacrament of Confirmation | The Sacrament of the Eucharist | The Eucharistic Sacrifice | Sin and Repentence | The Sacrament of Penance | Extreme Unction | The Sacrament of Order | Christian Marriage | Death and Judgment | Purgatory, or the Church Suffering | Eternal Punishment | The Resurrection of the Body | Heaven, or the Church Triumphant Contributions by Rev. J. P. Arendzen · Rev. John M. T. Barton · Msgr. Canon C. Cronin · Rev. M.C. D’Arcy · Rev. Richard Downey · Rev. T. E. Flynn · Archbishop Goodier · Dom Aelred Graham · Rev. H. Harrington · Dom Justin McCann · Dom J. B. McLaughlin · Rev. E. J. Mahoney · Rev. C. C. Martindale · Rev. B. V. Miller · Rev. J. P. Murphy · Msgr. Canon E. Myers · Rev. A. L. Reys · Rev. G. D. Smith · Rev. E. Towers · Rev. O. R. Vassall-Phillips · Abbot Anscar Vonier

Canon Smith subtitles the two volumes of The Teaching of the Catholic Church he has edited as a 'summary'. At well over 1000 pages, summary does not entail any lack in comprehensiveness. The contributors—such as Goodier, Martindale, McCann and Vonier—represent some the best in the blossoming Catholic Church in England in the first half of the twentieth century. Though traditional in structure, each topic is approached with none of the dryness of the theological manuals, with contemporary thought and controversies addressed for the benefit of the reader. These volumes sit happily between the popular theology and apologetics of Frank Sheed, and the definitive Catechism of the Catholic Church published under John Paul II. They offer a rich and sure resource for seminarians and all those who seek to know better the Christian Faith. — Fr. Hugh Somerville Knapman, OSB, Monk of Douai; author of Ecumenism of Blood: Heavenly Hope for Earthly Communion

The time is surely more than ripe to draw from oblivion the classic theological works of the immediately pre-Conciliar period: works that combine the inheritance of Christian Scholasticism with that of the age of the Fathers, and, like both Fathers and Schoolmen, seek to be perennial and contemporary at one and the same time. As it happens, the best parts of the texts of the Second Vatican Council, together with, in its wake, the teaching documents of John Paul II, perpetuate this same winning formula. It is admirably represented in the Smith compendium, the strengths of which had barely time to be tested before an era of fads supervened and swept its memory away. As an Englishman (or an Anglo-Scot) I am delighted that a Canadian publisher has seen fit to revive this example of what the Catholic Church in the British Isles of the mid-twentieth century was, by collaborative effort, able to achieve. — Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, Sometime John Paul II Memorial Lecturer in Roman Catholic Theology, University of Oxford