A static Catholic digital library for learning and sharing the faith — clear resources for Scripture, saints, sacraments, prayer, and the liturgical year, made for quiet reading and everyday growth.
Live site: https://axcel-blade.github.io/Digital-Catholic/
The library has three content areas, grouped into three pathways. The same grouping drives the site navigation, the homepage, and the About page (see src/lib/sections.ts).
| Section | What you'll find |
|---|---|
| Scripture, Doctrine, and the Saints | The Holy Bible — summaries of all 73 books of the Catholic canon, including the deuterocanonical books, and how the Bible was formed; core Catholic beliefs — the fundamental doctrines: the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection and Ascension, original sin and grace, heaven, hell, and purgatory, the Creeds, and the Four Last Things; the Holy Trinity — one God in three Persons — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — and how the Trinity appears across the Old and New Testaments; the seven gifts and the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit, and what each means for the Christian life; the Twelve Apostles in traditional order — life, Gospel accounts, miracles, relics, death, and feast days; the parables, filterable by theme; and the miracles, filterable by kind of sign, with the Shroud of Turin and the Veil of Veronica; and marian apparitions (Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fátima, Knock, Velankanni, and others) and Eucharistic miracles from Lanciano to modern events, each labelled with its Church status; and Mary and the saints — biographies of holy men and women with life dates, feast days, miracles, and relics, plus the path to sainthood (Servant of God, Venerable, Blessed, Saint); the Marian doctrines, the intercession and veneration of saints, relics and sacramentals, and angels; and the Sacraments — all seven sacraments in Catechism order — initiation, healing, and service of communion — plus eight in-depth guides on Baptism and Confirmation, the Real Presence, Transubstantiation, Confession, Marriage, Holy Orders, Anointing and Viaticum, and worthy reception of Holy Communion; and the Ten Commandments — the text and meaning of each commandment |
| Section | What you'll find |
|---|---|
| Study the Faith | Scripture and Tradition, the Magisterium, the 73 books and the Deuterocanonical books, how Catholics interpret Scripture, faith and reason, and the development of doctrine; and the Church — the four marks, the Pope, bishops, priests, deacons and laity, apostolic succession, the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, and ecumenism; and Church history — the early Church and Church Fathers, the seven ecumenical councils, the Great Schism, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, Trent and Vatican II, the papacy, and religious orders; and a timeline of milestones from Pentecost to the present, filterable by era; answers to common questions — Confession, the Real Presence, Mary and the saints, infant baptism, salvation, faith and works, the Pope, science and faith, and misconceptions; and a sourced, side-by-side comparison of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant beliefs; plus a searchable FAQ on doctrine, worship, morality, and Church history; and a glossary — plain-language definitions of Catholic terms, from absolution to viaticum, with Catechism references; and Christian living — the capital sins and virtues, the theological and cardinal virtues, the Commandments, the Beatitudes, mortal and venial sin, conscience, mercy, and the Works of Mercy; and social teaching — human dignity, the common good, solidarity and subsidiarity, the poor, the dignity of work, family, stewardship of creation, and peace and citizenship; and living the faith — first Communion and Confirmation, Confession step by step, OCIA, vocations, dating and marriage, Mass for beginners, daily prayer, and faith at university and work; and study paths — guided learning plans for beginners, people becoming Catholic, and practising Catholics |
| Section | What you'll find |
|---|---|
| Prayer and Liturgy | The Our Father and Hail Mary with full text and explanation; the Rosary — how to pray it, the traditional prayers, all twenty mysteries, and its origin; a Daily Gospel passage with a short explanation and a question for reflection; the Liturgy of the Hours, Lectio Divina, adoration and Benediction, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Angelus, the Stations of the Cross, novenas and litanies, and fasting; the Holy Mass — the order of Mass step by step and the items used at Mass; the Liturgical Calendar — seasons, solemnities, feasts, and memorials by year, with a “today” view; the parts of the Mass, Sunday and holy days of obligation, the liturgical year and its colours, the Real Presence, sacred music, sacred signs, Eastern liturgies, and reverence at Mass |
- Guided homepage with Learn / Study / Pray pathways, a featured liturgical-calendar panel, and a full library index.
- Article pages with breadcrumbs, metadata, an “On this page” list for longer articles, previous/next links, related reading, and a copy-link button.
- Sources on every article in an “About this article” panel: Scripture (linked to the USCCB New American Bible), the Catechism, Church documents, and other cited references, with the date each article was last reviewed.
- Church status labels for apparitions and Eucharistic miracles (approved for devotion, recognised or permitted, under investigation, historical tradition, or reported). Labels reflect only what each article states.
- Site search from any page (press
/), with category labels, highlighted excerpts, and full keyboard support. - Light and dark themes, a responsive layout, and accessibility built in: skip link, visible focus, 44px touch targets, and ARIA on every interactive control.
- SEO: a unique description per page, canonical URLs, Open Graph and Twitter cards with a branded social image, JSON-LD (WebSite, Organization, Article, BreadcrumbList), and a sitemap.
Content is offered for knowledge and devotion, not as a substitute for the Magisterium, your parish, or spiritual direction.
- Astro 6 — static site generation
- Plain CSS with design tokens — no UI framework or web fonts (see docs/DESIGN.md)
- Client-side search — a static
search-index.jsonis generated at build time and fetched on first use; no external service - @astrojs/sitemap — sitemap for SEO
All content lives in TypeScript modules under src/data/ — one file per article, loaded automatically by each section's index.ts.
Requires: Node.js 22.12 or newer
git clone https://github.com/axcel-blade/Digital-Catholic.git
cd Digital-Catholic
npm install
npm run devOpen http://localhost:4321.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
npm run dev |
Start the development server |
npm run build |
Production build to dist/ |
npm run preview |
Serve the production build locally |
The live site is served from /Digital-Catholic/. The deploy workflow sets ASTRO_SITE and ASTRO_BASE automatically. To reproduce the production build:
ASTRO_SITE=https://axcel-blade.github.io ASTRO_BASE=/Digital-Catholic/ npm run buildWindows note: with Astro 6.3.3, building with a non-root
ASTRO_BASEon Windows fails withMissing parameter: slug. The same build succeeds on Linux (including CI). On Windows, build at the root path, or run the base-path build in Docker (below) or WSL.
All internal links go through withBase() in src/lib/paths.ts, so pages work under any base path.
Requires: Docker (with Docker Compose)
docker compose up --buildOpen http://localhost:8080.
The image is a multi-stage build: Node 22 runs npm ci and npm run build, and the static output in dist/ is served by nginx (config in docker/nginx.conf). To build and run the image without Compose:
docker build -t digital-catholic .
docker run --rm -p 8080:80 digital-catholicThe optional build argument ASTRO_SITE sets the site URL used for canonical links and the sitemap (for example --build-arg ASTRO_SITE=https://example.org). The container serves the site from the root path, so leave ASTRO_BASE at its default of /.
public/ Static assets — favicon, social image (og-image.png), robots.txt, article images
scripts/ One-off maintenance scripts (content file splitter)
src/
components/ Header, footer, search, cards, filters, breadcrumbs, trust panel, SEO head
data/ Content files — one .ts per article per section
lib/ Shared loaders and the optional trust/source fields (trust.ts)
layouts/ BaseLayout, SectionLayout (landing pages), ArticleLayout (articles)
lib/ Section registry, navigation, SEO, search index, image and path helpers
pages/ Routes — home, about, contact, 404, all section pages, search-index.json
styles/ global.css — design tokens, light and dark themes
docs/ ARCHITECTURE.md (how the site is built and deployed), DESIGN.md (design system), and assets/ (logos and brand guide)
docker/ nginx config for the Docker image
Dockerfile Multi-stage build (Node build, nginx serve)
docker-compose.yml Local container setup on port 8080
.github/workflows/ CI (build check) and CD (deploy to GitHub Pages)
- How the site is built and deployed: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
- Add or edit content: src/data/README.md
- Section names, pathways, menu subgroups, and menu descriptions:
src/lib/sections.ts - Page titles and meta descriptions:
src/lib/seo.ts - Design tokens and component rules: docs/DESIGN.md
- Logos and brand usage: docs/assets/
- Contribution workflow: CONTRIBUTING.md
- Bug reports and content requests: GitHub Issues
- Help and contact: SUPPORT.md
- Security: SECURITY.md
- Community standards: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- Change history: CHANGELOG.md
Each article lists its sources — Scripture, the Catechism, Church documents, and other checked references — in its “About this article” panel. Images come from Wikimedia Commons; most are public domain, and some photos are under Creative Commons licences that require attribution. The source, author, and licence of every image is recorded in the CREDITS.md file of its folder (for example public/saints/CREDITS.md), and attribution-required photos are also credited in their captions.
The code is released under the MIT License. Images keep their own licences, as listed in each folder's CREDITS.md.