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Index librorum prohibitorum

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Image:Index Librorum Prohibitorum 1.jpg thumb|Venetiis, M. D. LXIIII. The '''''Index Librorum Prohibitorum''''' ("List of Prohibited Books") is a list of publications which the Roman Catholic Church Catholic Church censorship censored for being a danger to itself and the faith of its members. The various editions also contain the rules of the Church relating to the reading, selling and censorship of books. The aim of the list was to prevent the reading of morality immoral books or works containing theology theological errors and to prevent the corruption of the faithful. The list was not simply a reactive work. Catholic authors had the possibility to defend their writings and could prepare a new edition with the necessary corrections or elisions either to avoid or to limit a Ban (law) ban. Pre-publication censorship was encouraged. The first list of that kind was not published in Rome, but in the Netherlands (1529). Venice and Paris followed this example (1543 and 1551). 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 remodeled 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 (the Holy Office, later the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). In 1571 a special congregation (Roman Curia) congregation was erected, 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 Damnation#Religious 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. 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, political correctness political incorrectness, and so on. Among the notable writers on the list were Desiderius Erasmus, Giordano Bruno, Laurence Sterne, Voltaire, Daniel Defoe, Nicolaus Copernicus, Honoré de Balzac, Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as the Netherlands Dutch Sexology sexologist Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde, author of the sex manual ''The Perfect Marriage''. A complete list of the authors and writings present in the subsequent editions of the index are listed in J. Martinez de Bujanda, ''Index librorum prohibitorum, 1600-1966'', Geneva, 2002. Almost every great Western culture Western philosophy philosopher was, or is, included on the list--even those that believed in God, such as Descartes, Kant, George Berkeley Berkeley, Malebranche, Lamennais and Gioberti. That some Atheism atheists, such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, are not included is due to the general (Tridentine) rule that Heresy heretical works (i.e., works that criticize or condemn any element of the Catholic faith) are List of Latin phrases ipso facto forbidden. That some important works are absent is due to the fact that nobody bothered to Denunciation denounce them. A lot of actions of the congregations were of a definite political content. In 1926, the ''Action Française'' magazine, espousing right-wing politics far-right French causes, was put on the ''Index''. Alfred Rosenberg’s ''Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts'' and his ''An die Dunkelmänner unserer Zeit: eine Antwort auf die Angriffe gegen den "Mythus des 20. Jahrhundert"'', were condemned by decrees of February 7, 1934 and of July 17, 1935 respectively. Ernst Bergmann's ''Die deutsche Nationalkirche'' and his ''Die natürliche Geistlehre'', by decrees of February 7 1934 and November 17, 1937. Hitler's ''Mein Kampf'' has not been censored, however. The ''Index'''s effects were felt throughout much of the Catholic world. From Quebec to Poland it was, for many years, very difficult to find copies of banned works, especially outside of major City cities. The ''Index'' as an official list having force of law was abolished in 1966 under Pope Paul VI, following the end of the Second Vatican Council and largely due to practical considerations. However, the ''moral obligation'' of not circulating or reading those writings which endanger faith and morals remains.

See also
* Banned books * Censorship

External links

- Facsimile of the 1559 index
- Facsimile of a spanish index librorum prohibitorum et expurgatorum - complete
- The complete list of banned books in 1948
- List of famous authors in the index
- "Index of Prohibited Books", The ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', 1913: "The first Roman ''Index of Prohibited Books'' (''Index librorum prohibitorum''), published in 1559 under Pope Paul IV Paul IV, was very severe, and was therefore mitigated under that pontiff by decree of the Holy Office of 14 June of the same year. It was only in 1909 that this ''Moderatio Indicis librorum prohibitorum'' (''Mitigation of the Index of Prohibited Books'') was rediscovered in ''Codex Vaticanus lat. 3958, fol. 74'', and was published for the first time." The ''effectiveness'' of such a mitigation is open to question.
- The ten "tridentine" rules on the censorship of books (English)
- The papal constitution ''Sollicita ac provida'' regulating the work of the Congregations of the Holy Office and of the Index (Latin)
- Text from ''Vatican II: The Church is Opening Up to the World'' - Includes quotations from Vatican Council II from individuals lambasting the Index Category:Roman Catholic Church history Category:Latin religious phrases Category:Censorship Category:1559 in law Category:Christian texts Category:Counter Reformation de:Index Librorum Prohibitorum et:Index librorum prohibitorum es:Index Librorum Prohibitorum eo:Indekso de malpermesitaj libroj fr:Index Librorum Prohibitorum gl:Index Librorum Prohibitorum it:Indice dei libri proibiti lb:Index librorum prohibitorum nl:Index librorum prohibitorum pl:Indeks ksiąg zakazanych pt:Index Librorum Prohibitorum ru:Index Librorum Prohibitorum sk:Zoznam zakázaných kníh fi:Index Librorum Prohibitorum sv:Index librorum prohibitorum see Index Librorum Prohibitorum

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