| ---
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| license: other
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| license_name: public-domain
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| language:
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| - en
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| - la
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| tags:
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| - theology
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| - catholic
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| - christianity
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| - aquinas
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| - summa-theologica
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| - church-fathers
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| - catena-aurea
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| - patristics
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| - bible
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| - vulgate
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| - citations
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| - knowledge-graph
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| - retrieval
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| pretty_name: "Catena: an open, cited corpus of the Catholic tradition"
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| size_categories:
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| - 10K<n<100K
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| configs:
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| - config_name: summa
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| data_files: summa.jsonl
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| - config_name: catena_aurea
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| data_files: catena_aurea.jsonl
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| - config_name: roman_catechism
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| data_files: roman_catechism.jsonl
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| - config_name: douay_rheims
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| data_files: douay_rheims.jsonl
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| - config_name: clementine_vulgate
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| data_files: clementine_vulgate.jsonl
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| - config_name: scripture_edges
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| data_files: scripture_edges.jsonl
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| - config_name: father_edges
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| data_files: father_edges.jsonl
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| - config_name: internal_edges
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| data_files: internal_edges.jsonl
|
| ---
|
|
|
| # Catena: an open, cited corpus of the Catholic tradition
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|
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| A clean, machine-readable, **public-domain** corpus of the Catholic tradition where
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| every unit of text carries a **canonical citation**, the text is stored **verbatim**
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| (never paraphrased or truncated), and the tradition's own **citation graph** is
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| included as loadable data. Built for grounded, cite-or-refuse retrieval.
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|
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| Source, ingest code, a live web explorer, and an MCP grounding server:
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| **https://github.com/AlvaroBalbin/catena**
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|
|
| ## Subsets
|
|
|
| | config | rows | what |
|
| |--------|------|------|
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| | `summa` | 3,115 | The Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, one row per article, with its canonical citation (`ST I, q.2, a.3`) and full verbatim text. |
|
| | `catena_aurea` | 814 | The Catena Aurea - Aquinas's patristic "golden chain" on the four Gospels, one row per verse-pericope: the verse commented on, the Church Fathers in the chain, and their full verbatim commentary. |
|
| | `roman_catechism` | 929 | The Roman Catechism (Catechism of the Council of Trent), one row per subsection, with its Part and heading and full verbatim text. Public-domain McHugh & Callan translation (1923). |
|
| | `douay_rheims` | 35,786 | The Douay-Rheims Bible (Challoner revision), one row per verse, English. |
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| | `clementine_vulgate` | 35,809 | The Clementine Vulgate (Sixto-Clementine, 1592), one row per verse, Latin - keyed identically to the Douay-Rheims so a citation resolves to both languages. |
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| | `scripture_edges` | 9,449 | The citation graph: one row per (Summa article -> Scripture verse) edge. |
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| | `father_edges` | 3,783 | The patristic golden chain as edges: one row per (Catena Aurea pericope -> Gospel verse it comments on), with the Fathers who speak - which Fathers weigh in on which verse. |
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| | `internal_edges` | 3,775 | The citation graph: one row per (Summa article -> Summa article) edge. |
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|
|
| ```python
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| from datasets import load_dataset
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|
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| summa = load_dataset("TheAlvaroBalbin/catena", "summa")
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| fathers = load_dataset("TheAlvaroBalbin/catena", "catena_aurea")
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| verses = load_dataset("TheAlvaroBalbin/catena", "douay_rheims")
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| latin = load_dataset("TheAlvaroBalbin/catena", "clementine_vulgate")
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| edges = load_dataset("TheAlvaroBalbin/catena", "scripture_edges")
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| ```
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|
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| Every verse shares a `verse_key` (`john/1/14`) across the two Bibles and the edge
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| tables, so the subsets join cleanly: an article's Scripture citations resolve to real
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| verse text in English and Latin.
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|
|
| ## The three disciplines
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|
|
| 1. **Lossless.** Text is captured verbatim from the source edition; only whitespace is
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| normalized. Nothing is summarized or silently truncated.
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| 2. **Addressable.** Every unit has a stable, canonical citation and a join key.
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| 3. **Grounded.** The reference demo (in the GitHub repo) answers only from retrieved
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| units, always cites, and refuses when the corpus does not contain the answer.
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|
|
| ## Sources and rights
|
|
|
| All texts are public domain by age and are redistributed with their edition attributed.
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| Full provenance and the per-text rights reasoning are in
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| [`data/SOURCES.md`](https://github.com/AlvaroBalbin/catena/blob/main/data/SOURCES.md).
|
|
|
| - **Summa Theologica** - trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 2nd rev. ed.
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| (1920-22). Public domain.
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| - **Catena Aurea** - Aquinas's compilation of the Church Fathers on the Gospels, in the
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| Oxford translation edited by J. H. Newman (1841-45). Public domain.
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| - **Roman Catechism** (Catechism of the Council of Trent) - tr. J. A. McHugh & C. J.
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| Callan (1923); public domain in the US (pre-1929). A different work from the
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| copyrighted modern Catechism, which is not included.
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| - **Douay-Rheims Bible** - Challoner revision (1749-52), via Project Gutenberg #1581.
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| Public domain.
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| - **Clementine Vulgate** - Sixto-Clementine (1592); electronic edition by The Clementine
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| Vulgate Project (ed. M. Tweedale, 2005), released to the public domain.
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|
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| Copyrighted texts (the modern Catechism, modern Bible or encyclical translations) are
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| **not** included. The `license: other` tag denotes public-domain-by-age; there is no
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| rights holder to waive rights, and none is implied.
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|
|
| ## Citation graph coverage
|
|
|
| 96.8% of the Summa's Scripture citations parse (8,491 of 8,768). Because a single
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| citation to a verse range or a whole chapter touches several verses, those expand to
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| 9,449 verse-level `article -> verse` edges here (`scripture_edges`); chapter-level
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| citations and the full adjacency maps are in `graph/`. 99% of the Summa's internal
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| cross-references resolve into 3,775 `article -> article` edges (`internal_edges`).
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| The graph builder and coverage details are in the GitHub repository.
|
|
|
