A Guide to Documents Relating to French and British North America in the Archives of the Sacred Congregation "de Propaganda Fide" in Rome

David M. Kelly is a teaching assistant at Brock University in St.
Catharines.

As any professional historian will readily admit, one of the chief
obstacles to research is the search for original documents. In answer to
this, Codignola has organized—in painstaking detail—a guide to
discovering documents and studies that focus on the problems of North
American Catholicism.

De Propaganda Fide, the birthchild of the Sacred Congregation de
Propaganda Fide (1622), introduces us to the calendar of documents
discovered and preserved by the Congregation. It is an excellent guide
and excels at listing not only the various essential documents but also
other resources, including the prestigious Roman archives and libraries.
The text, though limited, is highly readable and provides a basic
introduction to the work of the Congregation and the progress of
Canadian Catholicism from 1622 to 1799.

Though not for the casual historian or lay reader, De Propaganda Fide
should prove to be an absolute godsend for professional researchers in
North American religious history.