About Catena Fidei

Catena Fidei is a reference for Catholic teaching in which every entry is connected to the other entries it relates to. A doctrine links to the council that defined it, the council to the controversy it answered, the controversy to the Scripture it turned on, and the Scripture to the Fathers who commented on it. The links carry meaning: you can see why two things are connected, not just that they are.

The name comes from the Catena Aurea, the “golden chain” of Thomas Aquinas, a commentary that linked each verse of the Gospels to the Fathers who had written about it. This site is the same idea, applied to the whole of Catholic teaching one map at a time.

How it is built

Each map is written as a set of linked notes and then published here. Every claim traces back to its source: a council canon, an encyclical, a Catechism paragraph, a verse, a patristic text. Source texts are reproduced in full where their translation is in the public domain or under an open licence, and otherwise quoted briefly with a link to the full text.