Hierarchia Catholica medii et recentioris aevi, sive, Summorum Pontificum, S.R.E. Cardinalium, Ecclesiarum Antistium series, e documentis tabularii praesertim Vaticani collecta, digesta, edita, Volume IX: A Pontificatu Pii PP.X (1903) usque ad Pontificatum Benedicti PP.XV (1922) (review)

Although this tome, heavy in weight and large in format, is a very important and useful reference tool, it cannot be reviewed critically by anyone who does not have access to the Vatican Archives and the other unpublished sources on which it is based. Therefore, a merely descriptive notice must suffice. This ninth volume in the series initiated by Father Konrad Eubel in 1898 has appeared twenty-four years after the eighth and is the work of Polish Conventual Franciscans. It contains, besides the prelates named in the title, the archbishops and bishops appointed by Leo XIII who continued in office under his two immediate successors. It also includes the bishops of the Oriental rites about whom no material is found in papal documents; information regarding their election and the state of their dioceses is drawn from published sources. As in the preceding volumes, the extensive footnotes, usually occupying two-thirds of each page, provide not only biographical sketches of the prelates but also statistical data about their dioceses unless they held titular sees. For example, for George William Mundelein one must look in two places: first, under the titular see of Loryma (in Caria), to which he was appointed in 1909 (p. 230), when he became auxiliary to the bishop of Brooklyn; here the lengthy footnote states the basic facts of his birth, education and degrees, priestly ordination and ministry, and episcopal consecration. Secondly, one must look under the metropolitan see of Chicago, to which he was promoted in 1915 (p. 125); here the first footnote gives for 1914 the numbers of suffragans and consultors, the size of the archdiocese, the total and Catholic populations, the numbers of diocesan and religious priests, of seminarians, of religious brothers and sisters and their novices and postulants, and of parishes, schools, hospitals, and other institutions; then these data are updated for 1920. The second footnote continues the biographical information, including his elevation to the cardinalate in 1924 and his death in 1939, both of which events occurred after the period covered by this volume. The first of the two appendixes lists in geographical divisions the titular bishops (1) who were merely auxiliaries and (2) who exercised jurisdiction in areas not subject to any diocese such as vicariates apostolic; the second ("provincial") appendix lists the ecclesiastical provinces and dioceses according to country (and in some cases region) or continent; the titular provincial sees are divided according to patriarchates. There are also indexes of vernacular names of dioceses and of persons.

We must commend not only the editor, Father Pięta, for his painstaking attention to innumerable factual details but also the typographers for masterfully surmounting the challenge presented by the complex layout of each page. Work on the next volume cannot be completed until the Secret Vatican Archives are opened for the pontificate of Pius XI (1922–1939), which was almost as long as the two pontificates of Pius X and Benedict XV combined but witnessed the erection of many more diocesan sees and the appointment and promotion of many more bishops. No doubt, the enterprise will remain in capable hands.