Concept Map

The Concept Map is an interactive network visualisation of the major concepts in the Catechism and the relationships between them. Concepts are displayed as nodes and relationships as edges.

• Use the mouse wheel or + / − buttons to zoom in and out.
• Click and drag to pan across the map.
• Click any concept node to see its detail panel with related concepts and linked paragraphs.
• Use the search bar at the top of the map to find a specific concept by name.
• Concepts are colour-coded by type: theological terms, sacraments, virtues, persons, events, and more.

Concept Detail Pages

Each concept has a detail page showing:

• A description of the concept and its type (e.g. sacrament, virtue, doctrine).
• Related concepts with their relationship type (e.g. "is part of", "requires", "contrasts with").
• All Catechism passages linked to that concept, ranked by relevance. Concept names in the passage text are highlighted and linked.

Browse the Catechism

The Browse page presents all 2863 paragraphs in their original structure: Part, Chapter, and Article. Expand any section to see its paragraphs with a text preview, then click through to the full paragraph page.

Paragraph Pages

Each paragraph has its own page (e.g. ¶ 1) showing:

• The full text with linked concept terms highlighted.
• A breadcrumb trail showing Part, Chapter, and Article.
• An "In Brief" badge for summary paragraphs.
• Linked concept badges that take you to the concept map.
• Previous / next navigation to read through sequentially.

You can jump directly to any paragraph using the ¶ # box in the navigation bar.

Search

The Search page lets you find Catechism content by keyword. Results include:

• Matching concepts — concepts whose name matches your query, linking to their map page.
• Matching paragraphs — paragraphs containing your search terms, with highlighted snippets.

About the Data

CathNet was built using natural language processing to extract concepts, relationships, and cross-references from the full text of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The pipeline includes:

• Sentence-level embeddings for semantic search.
• Co-occurrence analysis and concept extraction via large language models.
• Relationship typing (e.g. IS_A, PART_OF, REQUIRES, HAS_EFFECT) across 5305 edges.
• Force-directed graph layout for the interactive map.