Lexikon Des Kirchenrechts ed. by Stephan Haering, Heribert Schmitz (review)

England, and old England relationships, and the variety of understandings of the church, society, and civil state relationships within the developing covenantal theology of the era. The sociologist of religion and of ideas will be informed by the interplay of ideology and civil forces, of theology and culture, and of politics and the religious formulations of this corner of the English colonial empire. Jeffrey Gros, FSC Memphis Theological Seminary Memphis, TN LEXIKON DES KIRCHENRECHTS edited by Stephan Haering and Heribert Schmitz Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 2004. This quite valuable canonical dictionary is one of the studies published in the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche Kompakt series for academic study and legal-pastoral practice. It takes as its point of departure selected canonical entries from the third edition of the prestigious series the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, which thoughtfully addresses various theological, canonical, historical, and pastoral issues. Readers of The Jurist and other serious students of the history and theology of Vatican II will probably be familiar with the five volume LTK commentary on the conciliar documents edited by Heribert Vorgrimler in the late 1960s. This text was one of the earliest comprehensive analyses of the conciliar process and texts and still remains an exceptionally insightful source even after nearly four decades. The present relatively compact volume is a notably updated version of the canonical entries in the third edition of the Lexikon. It contains 800 entries of varying length on various canonical concepts and institutes, the length of which obviously depends on the legal significance of a given concept or institute as determined by the two editors, who are well known not only in German-speaking canonical circles but throughout the canonical world. The work focuses on issues especially relevant to contemporary canonical theory and practice, and hence some older entries of less contemporary interest have been dropped in the current Lexikon. The canonical Lexikon also includes 300 biographical entries on significant canonical figures throughout history. About 120 of the articles are newly written and did not appear in the more comprehensive Lexikon. There has also been some reworking of both the primary canonical book reviews 539 540 the jurist sources related to the respective concepts and institutes as well as the secondary literature pertinent to them. The work is geared to serving the practical needs of those involved in pastoral care, those working in various administrative capacities, and those exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction especially in church tribunals. It will also be useful for those engaged in teaching canon law at various levels and/or doing research on various issues. After a brief forward introducing the reader to the work, the Lexikon provides an extensive and impressive list of contributors to the volume representing the broad scope of German-speaking canonical scholarship. It then offers a list of abbreviations of editorial terms and also of canonical monographs and periodicals cited in the brief bibliographies following the various entries. The bulk of the work is then devoted to an examination of significant canonical concepts and institutes and canonically noteworthy figures. The work ends with a series of indices. First of all, there is a brief index of the concepts/institutes/persons discussed in the Lexikon. This would have been somewhat more helpful if it had indicated to the reader the page(s) on which the various entries were found; but given the alphabetical organization of the material, this is hardly a major concern. The work closes with a valuable referral to the pages on which various canons in the two codes are addressed. Obviously this is a work that one will consult only occasionally as the need dictates. However, it is very well laid out and hence will facilitate such consultation. The Lexikon joins works such as the Diccionario de Derecho Canonico and the Nuovo Diuzionario di Diritto Canonico as particularly valuable sources of canonical insight for practitioners and academics alike. One can only lament that for one reason or another there is no comparable canonical dictionary in the English-speaking canonical world. Thomas J. Green School of Canon Law The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. ...