This is part of an ongoing series that will be posted each Monday. You can read the introduction to this series by clicking here.

Monday! Time once again for Monday School – STILL “The Rational Corrective To All That Nonsense They Tried To Teach You Yesterday!”

Today’s Lesson: What’s The Deal With The Index?

According to Burman’s The Inquisition: The Hammer of Heresy and other sources, the French Revolution of the late 1700s marked the beginning of the end for the Inquisition. The last execution for heresy occurred in July 1826 when schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll was hanged in Valencia for teaching Deism. The Spanish Inquisition formally ended on July 15, 1834. Religious tolerance was incorporated into the Spanish Constitution on June 6, 1869.

Unfortunately, the Catholic Church’s war against “evil” books continued for another 100 years.

As with so many horrible acts of the Church, the thinking that inspired this one can be traced back to the Bible itself. Deuteronomy 7:4-5 is just one place where God Himself allegedly commands the destruction of the altars and images of contrary belief systems. Acts 19:19 presents the burning of books valued at 50,000 silver pieces as a good and noble thing.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia’s Censorship of Books entry, “The First Ecumenical Council of Nicæa (325) condemned not only Arius personally, but also his book entitled ‘Thalia’; Constantine commanded that the writings of Arius and his friends should everywhere be delivered up to be burned; concealment of them was forbidden under pain of death. In the following centuries, when and wherever heresies sprung up, the popes of Rome and the oecumenical councils, as well as the particular synods of Africa, Asia, and Europe, condemned, conjointly with the false doctrines, the books and writings containing them.” It goes on to say that the first attempt to issue a catalog of forbidden works came when Pope Innocent I made a list of condemned apocryphal writings in 405 CE. Other sources indicate that the Church’s official opposition to the free exchange of information deepened in 496 CE when Pope Gelasius I issued a list of writings he wanted banned. It wasn’t until after Gutenburg’s development of the printing press in the mid 1400s and literacy began to increase among the masses, however, that the Church’s attempt to control the dissemination of ideas got into high gear.

As this Modern History Sourcebook site explains, the war against books was sanctioned by the Fifth Lateran Council in 1515 and sanctioned again by the Council of Trent in 1546. Pope Paul IV issued the first Index of Prohibited Books (or Index Librorum Prohibitorum) about ten years later.

A copy of that first, very lengthy list (which may have included 75% of all books then in print in Europe) can be found here. Among the famous people whose works were banned: John Calvin, Erasmus, King Henry VIII, Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and John Wycliffe. The Koran, the Talmud, and most Bibles seem to have been included, too. Dozens of updated lists were issued over the course of the next 400 years….

The last edition of the Index was published in 1948 and contained about 4000 titles. The preface by Cardinal Merry Del Val reveals the twisted Catholic thinking behind the Index in all its horrid glory:

“Today we face a struggle which is lead by the Devil himself; it is founded on something both insincere and destructive: Malicious publications.

“No other danger is greater, it threatens the faith and exercise of custom and integrity, therefore the Holy Church will increasingly point this out to the Christians, in that way enabling them to retreat before this threat….

“The Holy Church, which was appointed by God himself, could not proceed otherwise. It represents an infallible master who securely leads his believers. Thus, the Church is equipped with all necessary and useful means to prevent the infection of the herd of Jesus, by the erroneous and corrupt which will show itself irrespective of the mask it hides behind. Consequently The Holy Church has the duty, and hence the right, to pursue this aim.

“One must not claim that the condemnation of harmful books is a violation of freedom or a war against the Light of Truth, and that the index of forbidden books is a permanent attack against the progress of science and literature….

“Only those infected by that plague which goes under the name liberalism can see injuries inflicted on free choice in the restraints imposed against libertinism by the legitimate power….

“Irreligious and immoral books are written in a seductive manner, often with themes which deal with fleshly passion, or themes that deceive the pride of the soul. These books are carefully written to make an impression and aim at gaining ground in both the heart and mind of the incautious reader by means of studied artifices….; it is therefore natural that the Church, as a provident mother, admonishes the faithful with timely prohibitions so that they do not draw their lips to the easy chalices of poison. It is not from fear of the light that the Holy See forbids the reading of certain books, but out of that great zeal with which God enflames it and which does not tolerate the loss of souls ….

“[M]an, fallen from original justice, is strongly inclined towards evil and is consequently in great need of protection and defense….

“In addition, the necessity to suppress malicious publications for the well-being of the public, has particularly been proven lately, when even civil governments [in Italy and Germany, perhaps?], have used preventive censorship to protect the judicial system and public order, with a rigidity unknown to the Church. This shows us how well it corresponds with the true liberty.

“No matter how much true literary and scientific values a book can possess, it cannot legitimate the distribution which opposes the religion and good custom. On the contrary, the more subtle and seductive the evil is, the more it necessitates stronger and more efficient suppression of it….”

Among those “agents of the Devil” whose every written word was banned: Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, David Hume, Alexander Dumas, Emile Zola, and Jean Paul Sartre.

Among others who had at least one of their works banned: Peter Abelard, Rabelais, Descartes, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Berkeley, Milton, Joseph Addison, John Locke, Daniel Defoe, Lawrence Sterne, Pascal, Edward Gibbon, Jonathan Swift, Richard Steel, Oliver Goldsmith, Diderot, Rouseau, Kant, John Stuart Mill, Montaigne, Stendhal, Victor Hugo, George Sand, Balzac, and Flaubert.

Our world would be immeasurably poorer had the Church succeeded in suppressing the words and insights of all these great people.

It seems the Church only abandoned the Index in 1966 because it wasn’t working – not because Church officials had a change of heart. In a statement released at the time, the Church defended the old Index as a “moral guide in so far as it reminds the conscience of the faithful they must avoid writings which can be dangerous to faith & morals.”

The Church continues to claim the right to review and “correct” the works of Catholic authors before publication.