Crenshaw's Books & Decks

 This is a revised edition of Hardon's classic published in 1980, updated in 2013 way after the death of the author. Said differently, the updates in this abridge dictionary are not the author's. It is great having this sort of dictionary on Kindle, though.

The entries included are defined in plain language and provide the lay reader (Catholic or not) with a concise precise information on each item. The cross references in the body of the text are linked, which makes consultation easy. However, most of the words I have looked up are not there! Most of them related to liturgy and vestments, some religious feasts, some titular sees of the Catholic Church, some types of blessing, among others. Then, you find, for example, an entry on Marxism or another on abortion, which are, well, out of place and moralistic. Hello Hello, Common Sense lost, Houston!

Then, there is an appendix with all the Popes of the Church. That is always handy, but you can easily find that on the Internet, for free. I would have preferred having that space occupied with more entries.

I would had rather have the complete original Catholic Dictionary in two Kindle volumes if necessary, than a chopped one. Besides, the Kindle index is generic, alphabetic, so worthless unless you want to use the dictionary letters as a chapter to read as a whole. It would have paid off (to highlight the name of the editor) having a general index with each entry linked back and forward. Something really easy to do if the editor and publishers thought more often about Kindle readers. Of course, we have the Search tool for searching, but that is not the same as going directly to the entry you want to check without wasting a second because some look-ups render a considerable amount of information that you have to go through without guarantee of finding anything of interest.  

Get the original in hard-copy format, which has 5000 voices instead of the 2000 in this one.

Useful Dictionary but very basic.