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Title page of Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Venice 1564).
Title page of Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Venice 1564).

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books") was a list of publications prohibited by the Roman Catholic Church. The avowed aim of the list was to protect the faith and morals of the faithful by preventing the reading of immoral books or works containing theological errors. The various editions also contain the rules of the Church relating to the reading, selling and censorship of books. Books that passed inspection were printed with nihil obstat ("nothing forbids") or Imprimatur ("let it be printed") on the title page.

The list was not simply a reactive work. Roman Catholic authors had the opportunity to defend their writings and could prepare a new edition with the necessary corrections or elisions, either to avoid or to limit a ban. Pre-publication censorship was encouraged; self-censorship, however, was incalculable.

Contents

History

Early indexes (1529—1571)

The first list of the kind was not published in Rome, but in Roman Catholic Netherlands (1529). Venice (1543) and Paris (1551, under the terms of the Edict of Châteaubriant) followed this example. The first Roman Index was the work of Pope Paul IV (1557, 1559). The work of the censors was considered too severe and, after the Council of Trent had revised the church legislation on the prohibition of books, Pope Pius IV promulgated in 1564 the so called Tridentine Index, the basis of all later lists until Pope Leo XIII, in 1897, published his Index Leonianus. The very first lists were the work of the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church (later the Holy Office, now the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith).

Sacred Congregation of the Index (1571—1917)

In 1571 a special congregation was created, the Sacred Congregation of the Index, which had the specific task to investigate those writings that were denounced in Rome as being not exempt of errors, to update the list of Pope Pius IV regularly and also to make lists of corrections in case a writing was not in itself damnable but only in need of correction and put on the list with a mitigating clause (e.g., donec corrigatur (forbidden if not corrected) or donec expurgetur (forbidden if not purged)). This sometimes resulted in very long lists of corrections, published in the Index Expurgatorius. Prohibitions made by other congregations (mostly the Holy Office) were simply passed on to the Congregation of the Index, where the final decrees were drafted and made public, after approval of the Pope (who always had the possibility to condemn an author personally—only a few examples, such as Lamennais and Hermes). The Congregation of the Index was abolished in 1917, when the rules on the reading of books were again reelaborated in the new Codex Iuris Canonici. From that date on the Holy Office (again) took care of the index.

Holy Office (1917—1966)

The Index was regularly updated until the 1948 edition. This 32nd edition contained 4,000 titles censored for various reasons: heresy, moral deficiency, sexual explicitness, and so on. That some atheists, such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, were not included was due to the general (Tridentine) rule that heretical works (i.e., works that contradict Catholic dogma) are ipso facto forbidden. Some important works are absent simply because nobody bothered to denounce them. Many actions of the congregations were of a definite political content.

The effects of the Index were felt throughout much of the Roman Catholic world. From Quebec to Poland it was, for many years, very difficult to find copies of banned works, especially outside of major cities.

Status since 1966

Under Pope Paul VI, the Congregation for Doctrine of Faith ceased publication of the Index in 1966 following the end of the Second Vatican Council, largely for practical considerations. Although now suppressed (no longer being enforceable under canonical law), the Index has not strictly been abolished nor rescinded, not repudiated nor condemned. The moral obligation of not circulating or reading those writings which endanger faith and morals, was reaffirmed in 1966, in the same document - Notification by Congregation for Doctrine of Faith: "This Congregation for Doctrine of Faith (...) reaffirms that its Index retains its moral value (...) in the sense that it is appealing to the conscience of the faithful (...) to be on their guard against written materials that can put faith and good conduct in danger" - Signed Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, June 14, 1966).[1] It should be noted that Cardinal Ottaviani, who signed the decree to suppress the Index, was one of the most conservative members of the College of Cardinals at the time. Further, on every bishop in the Roman Catholic Church lies great responsibility for the moral welfare of his flock; hence, he may still today issue an admonitum, i.e., an admonition to the faithful that a book is pernicious and thus ought not be read.

Listed works and authors

Main article: List of authors and works listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum

See also

References

  1. ^ Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1966, p. 445 (contributor's translation)

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