In the last article on Galileo and Bruno (‘A Confession After 400 Years’), we came across the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of forbidden books maintained by the Roman Catholic Church from the 16th century to the 20th century. I had made a note to check out which authors or books had met the same fate. What I learned is stunning!
The last edition of the Index was published in 1948 (and discontinued in 1966). A list of the authors and books in that edition is readily available on Wikipedia. It reads like a who’s-who of leading philosophers, scientists, and poets that we hold in the highest regard today! Hobbes, Pascal, Descartes, Martin Luther, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, John Milton, Maimonides, John Locke, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Gibbon, Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Flaubert, Zola, Sartre, Gide … the list goes on and on. Many of these authors were tagged with the category Opera Omnia, that is, all of their works were forbidden – not just the ones that the Church had taken an issue with. And this was the list in 1966 – not in the Middle Ages. What were these folks thinking? No – were they thinking at all!
Censorship has always existed in all societies in some form. But the scale and organization with which the Church implemented it was mind-numbing. In all, the 1948 edition contained approximately 4,000 titles. These were all books deemed heretical, anti-clerical, or otherwise objectionable by the Church.
The process of including a book on the Index was secretive and draconian. Anyone could bring a work to the attention of the Church for evaluation. Similar to the practices of secret police in various autocratic regimes, that person's identity was never disclosed. Then, a department in the papal office, the Congregation of the Index, assessed the books. Their criteria were mysterious and fluid, often reaching far beyond theological issues to include political, social, and cultural factors. The assessment was done in secret, with no opportunity given to the author to clarify or defend their viewpoint. Sometimes, at the discretion of the Congregation, the authors could be invited to defend their case. But mostly they would simply be asked to purge all the objectionable portions. For example, Copernicus might have been asked to purge the central idea of heliocentrism from his works – which would make his book meaningless! Of course, that is a hypothetical case since he died long before his books were proscribed. At the end of this process, if the Congregation so deemed, the book, and sometimes all the books by that author, would be included in the Index.
What would happen if a book was included in the Index? Essentially, the Church was forbidding its faithful from printing, distributing, owning, reading, or even discussing the book. The Church warned everyone that doing any of the above would have spiritual consequences (read ‘eternal damnation’!). But not satisfied with that punishment in the afterlife, the Church also meted out more immediate punishments in our earthly world, which could go as far as excommunication, incarceration, or a trial at the Inquisition (with its tearing-of-limbs and ultimately burning-alive tactics, especially for the authors that did not agree to recant and modify their work). One had to be brave and careful to be an author in Europe during those times!
To understand the four centuries of Church censorship in context, consider that printing in Europe started with Gutenberg developing his printing press in 1439, and wide access to books took perhaps another 50 years to ramp up. With the first edition of the Index being published in 1559, and the practice continuing until 1966, the Church essentially tried to deprive the Catholic population of the best books written over this time (or earlier). Although not entirely successful in blocking the development of knowledge, the Church is definitely guilty of impeding it severely over this extended time. In contrast, Stalin’s regime, which I hitherto thought was the most extreme example of censorship, looks like child play.
Thank God neither of them was successful in the long run!
An atheist in me felt deeply hurt to see how much damage was done to so many...and was also pleased to see things looking otherwise now. Ajai, you wrote it so well.
By 1966 the list must have been unenforceable!