The ‘Denzinger’ compendium brings together the most important magisterial decisions from antiquity to the present day – Editorship passes from Peter Hünermann to Michael Seewald – New CREDENZ project combines editorial work with research on doctrinal development – ‘Including more historical texts: Work that can help solve contemporary questions to do with synodal structures in the Catholic Church’ – ‘We will continue to edit according to principles of independence, accuracy and textual fidelity’ – Funding from the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2025
The world’s most important collection of magisterial texts of the Roman Catholic Church will in future be edited by Professor of Dogmatics Michael Seewald from the University of Münster. Available in numerous languages, the ‘Denzinger’ compendium brings together the most important decisions made by the Church’s magisterium from antiquity to the present day. Seewald is taking over the work of Peter Hünermann, Professor of Dogmatics in Tübingen until 1997, who edited the compendium for more than 30 years, including its current 45th edition, published by Herder. The new edition will be published as part of the CREDENZ (Critical Edition of the Denzinger) research project, which Seewald plans to run for seven years. Besides the editorial work, this will involve research into how dogmatic norms arise through recourse to authoritative collections of texts, and how they alter with this canon. CREDENZ is funded by the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Seewald was awarded Germany’s most prestigious academic prize, worth 2.5 million euros, in March 2025. On handing over the editorship of the Denzinger, Peter Hünermann (photo) said: ‘I am passing this work on to Michael Seewald in friendship. The Denzinger will be in good hands with him’.
‘The new edition of the Denzinger must include texts from the pontificates of Francis and Leo XIV, while other, less read texts, especially from the pontificates of Paul VI and John Paul II, may perhaps be taken out of the collection’, said Seewald. It would also be appropriate to include historical texts that are not yet in the Denzinger. ‘The Church is currently searching for a synodal structure. The late medieval reform councils, such as the Council of Constance (1414-1418), made groundbreaking statements on this. It has long received little attention in dogmatics, but today it could be of interest again. It therefore deserves more space in Denzinger’. According to Seewald, such changes would be approached cautiously, with care taken to ensure that the numbering does not shift, and that texts can still be found under their familiar numbers.
‘Detailed knowledge of theological history combined with theological finesse’
The collection, which makes the magisterial texts easy to cite and quick to find, was first published in 1854 by Heinrich Denzinger and has been repeatedly revised and expanded ever since. ‘Magisterial means that, depending on historical context, a synod or later the Pope formulated a text with the claim that it was binding in matters of doctrine and morality’, explains Seewald. The compendium is key for theological research and teaching. The magisterium itself also often quotes from Denzinger, with the Church Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, ‘Lumen Gentium’, alone containing 45 references to Denzinger.
On taking over the editorship, Seewald said: ‘Peter Hünermann’s work on Denzinger has been marked by great independence, accuracy and textual fidelity. Our work will also follow these principles’. Hünermann has rendered outstanding services to the Denzinger. Under him, the compendium was translated into German and numerous other languages for the first time. ‘Continuing this work is both an honour and an obligation for me’, said Seewald.
‘The humanities are alive and well’, publisher Manuel Herder said. ‘Having existed for 170 years, this standard work has outlived most companies in business and industry. Thanks to its editors, “Denzinger” stands always for theology at the cutting edge – with an eye to the future’. Manuel Herder thanked Peter Hünermann for his great dedication and wished Michael Seewald every success for the future.
Pope Francis said in 2019: ‘The Denzinger helps us because it contains the entire dogmatic theology’. At the same time, though, the Pope also emphasised the need to take account of developments and changes in the Church. Stephan Weber, Herder’s editor responsible for theology, said: ‘We chose Michael Seewald as the new editor of Denzinger because he combines detailed knowledge of theological history and finesse in systematic theology. His work on doctrinal development is considered standard in the field and has made him one of the most sought-after German-speaking theologians in the world’.
The Denzinger reproduces magisterial texts in two columns – in the original language, usually Latin, and in translation. Each text is accompanied by a short introduction and references to sources. The compendium assigns a number to each section of a document. ‘If you want to know briefly and concisely what Pope Pius VIII said to the Archbishop of Rennes in 1830 about interest rates, you can either search for it in the archives or look it up in Denzinger’s No. 2722’. Quotations from Denzinger are given with the editor’s abbreviation and the text number, previously ‘DH’ for Denzinger-Hünermann, and in future ‘DS’ for Denzinger-Seewald. The latter has already been used, when Adolf Schönmetzer was editor from 1963 onwards. International editions of the compendium have been published in recent years in Chinese, English, French, Italian, Korean, Croatian, Portuguese, Spanish and Hungarian. (vvm/tec)
Current edition: Heinrich Denzinger: A Compendium of Creeds, Definitions and Declarations of the Catholic Church. Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum. Revised, expanded, translated into German and edited by Peter Hünermann in collaboration with Helmut Hoping. 45th edition. Herder, Freiburg et al. 2017.