CHAPTER XII

THE AUTHORITY AND THE RESULTS OF THE CENSORSHIP OF THE CHURCH--SCHEDULE OF INDEXES, 1526–1900

In the earlier periods of the Index, the Curia had, in form at least, taken the ground that the prohibitions and condemnations as published in Rome were, without further action, to be held as binding upon all the countries in which the Church itself was recognised. This contention, as has already been noted, failed to secure acceptance in countries like France, Spain, Germany, and Belgium. In fact even in certain divisions of Italy, and conspicuously in Venice, the regulations of the Index were put into force only if, and when, the local authorities had confirmed the same. During the latter half of the 19th century, however, there came to be a change in the nature of the consideration given in Catholic countries to the censorship regulations of Rome. A series of provincial councils and a number of theologians and divines have taken the ground that the Index decrees were entitled to general acceptance and should be enforced with uniformity throughout all Catholic States. The protests and controversial opinions in regard to the condemnation or supervision of literature which, during the 17th and 18th centuries, had been so frequent had during these later decades become more and more exceptional. These earlier protests concerning certain individual books or individual writers developed, as we have seen, in quite a number of instances into general controversies, controversies many of which had an abiding influence on the opinions of believers and on the final policy of the Church. We may recall in this connection the results that arose through the action of the Roman authorities in regard to the works of such writers as the Jesuits Poza and Daniel, the Dominican Serry, the Jansenists Arnauld and Quesnel, the liberal Churchman Fénelon, etc.

It appears to-day to be the general practice in Catholic circles to speak of the purpose and operations of the Index with a fair measure of respect, and the authors of this later period permit themselves even to give specific commendation to the work of the Church in supervising and controlling, for the use of the faithful, the character of literary productions. Curiously enough, side by side with this increasing respect for the institution, or at least with the very considerable lessening of criticisms, protest, and antagonism against the working of the institution, there is evidence of an increasing ignorance of the details of the regulations of the later Indexes, those that are supposed at this time to be in force. The scholarly divines of the latter years of the last century had in not a few instances given evidence that they were by no means familiar with the present Index regulations or with the lists of books placed under condemnation. As late as 1890, Bishop Rass brought into print in Rome a volume by Justus Lipsius which had been condemned in two preceding Indexes; during the same period, Bishop Malou caused a new edition to be printed of a prohibited work. The vicar-general of Lorenzi printed in 1883 a treatise by Geiler von Keisersberg, oblivious of the fact that the name of the author remains in the first class of the Index. It is probably the case that there is under present conditions no such constant reference to the Index lists as guides for reading and for study as could secure for their regulations the authority which properly belongs to them under the theory of Church control. It is a question for the casuist to decide how far ignorance of the fact of condemnation of a book may serve as an extenuation of the sin of reading a volume, for which sin the penalty has been prescribed in successive Indexes of excommunication _latae sententiae_.

In 1862, under decision of the Quinquennial faculties, it was ordered that bishops had authority to extend permission for the reading of prohibited books only to priests who were actually engaged in the care of souls. Laymen desiring to secure such permission must make application direct to the Holy See. This is in line with the order issued, in 1853, by the Congregation of the Index under which the Ultramontane bishops had authority to extend to ecclesiastics of assured scholarship and piety permission to utilise, during their lifetime, prohibited books having to do with matters of religion and doctrine; but no such permission could be given for books _contra bonos mores_. In every permission issued by a bishop it must be specifically stated that the authority comes from the Holy See.

After the middle of the 19th century, there began to be a change in the relations of the ecclesiastics of France to the authority of the Index. In _La Revue Ecclésiastique_, an article printed in 1866 says: “If, twenty years back, the question had been put as to whether the authority of the Index was recognised in France, the answer would simply have been a laugh or a word in derision. To-day, such recognition is assented to without serious question. The formula _Index non viget in Gallia_, heretofore printed in books the titles of which had come upon the Roman Index, is now no longer to be seen.” Councils of the 19th century of the French Church in which the authority of the Roman Inquisition or of the Congregation of the Index to control literature in France had been accepted in substance, as cited in this article, are these: Paris and Rennes, 1849, Lyons and Clairmont, 1850, Avignon, 1849, Albi, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Sens, 1850, La Rochelle, 1853, and Rheims, 1857.

Among the councils of this period, outside of France, which placed themselves on record as specifically accepting the authority of the Index, are those of Prague, 1860, Colocsa, 1863, Utrecht, 1865. A council held in Venice, in 1859, orders that the Roman prohibitions are from year to year to be printed in a diocesan calendar. This is a very different attitude from that taken by Venice during the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 1852, Bishop Baillès of Luçon writes in a pastoral instruction: “The prohibition of a book by the Holy See is binding upon believers throughout the Church universal. The lists issued by the authorities of Rome of condemned and prohibited books are securing from year to year a fuller authority and a wider recognition.... Only heretics, schismatics, and Gallicans at this time contest the general authority of the Index.”

In Germany, the world-wide authority of the Index is asserted by such critics as Heymans and Phillips in their treatise on ecclesiastical law (issued in 1872) and by the editors of the Münster _Pastoral Blatt_, writing in 1879. A modified view is expressed by the editor of the _Katholik_, writing in 1859, who says: “The Index, considered as a moral law, is to be accepted as authoritative throughout the world. There may be ground for question, however, as to the general obligation to accept its penal regulations.” A little later, however, the editor of the _Katholik_, writing in 1864, says:

“The faithful throughout the world are under obligations to accept the authority of the censorship tribunals, the Inquisition and the Congregation of the Index, not only in regard to the prohibition of the use of prohibited books but also with reference to the conclusions reached by these censors concerning the soundness of doctrine or general fitness for devout reading of the literature contained in such books.... The history of the Church has secured for the wisdom of the work of the censorship authorities an assured, even a brilliant confirmation.” “The only utterance,” continues this writer, “in which the Congregation of the Index can be convicted of a serious or decisive error of judgment is that of the decree issued in 1616 against the writings of Copernicus.... While the history makes clear (what in fact no one has ever denied) that the Roman Congregations are in their judgments not infallible, the evidence is overwhelming as to the wisdom and effectiveness with which the work of these scholarly and devout censors has been carried on through the centuries; and it would be an act of very gross presumption for individual believers to undertake to question the validity and substantial value of their conclusions.”

In 1865, an article in the official _Civiltà Cattolica_[170] in regard to a treatise of the Bishop of Treviso, says:

“The infallibility of a prohibition or condemnation of a book which has been expressed through a papal Bull, a papal brief, or under a decree of the Congregation which has been issued under specific instructions from the pope, cannot be questioned. The ordinary decrees of the Congregation cannot be said to possess the same full measure of infallibility as these rest not upon the direct authority of the pope but merely upon the general authority under which the Congregation has been constituted. A book that has been condemned by the Congregation must, however, be considered as having been condemned by the Church of which the Congregation is for this purpose the authorised representative.”

As before pointed out, the influence of the Dominicans in the operations of the Congregation of the Index has been continuous and all powerful. As a result, the theological writers whose books have been condemned included a large proportion of Jesuits, and the literature presenting Jesuit doctrines has from the outset been handled with special severity. In the cases in which occasion has been found for reproving the books of Dominican authors, the censorship has been comparatively mild, and if the books were prohibited, the entry was usually made with the reservation _d.c._[171] Father Hilgers, of the Order of the Jesuits in Germany, whose treatise on the Index (issued in 1905) is referred to elsewhere, is one of the few of the scholarly Jesuits who have found it practicable to take a favourable view of the policy of the Index. The Jansenist view of the authority of the Index has not unnaturally been still less approving than that of the Jesuits. Amauld, for instance, writing in 1656, says:

“In France we do not trouble ourselves very much concerning the censures of the Index.... We know on what grounds certain of the condemnations have been arrived at. It is assuredly true that the prohibition of a work constitutes no evidence that it is really pernicious.... If a pope who has such devout purposes as characterised Innocent XI, in coming under the evil practice of Rome, finds it impossible to avoid the condemnation of really devout and scholarly books, it is easy to understand what the results of censorship must be when the authority comes into the hands of popes who are less pious and less fair-minded.... One may await only bad results from the book censorship of Rome so long as the practice obtains of listening only to those who denounce the books and of giving no opportunity to the authors themselves to make clear the writing or precise character of their text. In this way it has come about that books of most importance for scholarship and of religion have been condemned and cancelled on the ground of two or three sentences which have failed to be understood by careless or unscholarly examiners.”

Writing again in 1693, under Innocent XII, Arnauld says:

“Our good Pope is labouring in praiseworthy manner for the abolition of abuses. He has, however, not yet realised that one of the reforms most called for is to avoid appointing as members of the Inquisition cardinals who have no more trustworthy knowledge of the matters there to be considered than a shoemaker has of astronomy. The ‘qualificators’ (the examining scholars) have only a vote for counsel. It is with the cardinals that rest the deciding votes and these unfortunately are not weighed but simply counted. How many and serious have been the blunders committed through decisions of the Inquisition (or of the Congregation) in matters of doctrine of which the majority of the cardinals are frankly ignorant!”

As an example, on the other hand, of an unquestioning acceptance of the wisdom and authority of the Church in this matter of censorship, may be cited St. Francis of Sales, who writes (in 1608):

“We pray our Catholic readers, in order to protect themselves from the contagion of evil influences, to accept without question the book prohibitions of the Holy Church. We may say that we ourselves have always given the strictest obedience to the Church regulations in regard to the reading of condemned books. In no other way can we manifest the full honour in which we hold its authority and our obligations as believers to accept this authority.”[172]

Macchiavelli (writing about 1500) observes that if the princes of the Christian States had maintained religion in the form in which it was delivered by its Founder, these States would be more united and happier than they are. He adds, _ne se può fare altra maggiore conjettura della declinatione d’essa, quanto è vedere come quelli popoli che sono più propinqui alla Chiesa Romana, capo della Religione nostra, hanno meno Religione. Et chi considerasse i fondamenti suoi, e vedesse l’uso presente quanto è diverso da quelli, giudicherebbe esser propinquo senza dubbio, ò la rovina ò il flagello. Habbiamo adunque con la Chiesa e coi Preti noi Italiani questo primo obligo, d’essere diventati senza Religione e cattivi_, which Mendham interprets, “the more of Rome, the less of religion.”[173]

Sir Edwin Sandys, whose _Europae Speculum_, printed at The Hague in 1629, was translated (from English) into Latin by Francus, gives in this a summary of the literary policy of the Church of his time. He writes:

“But the Papacy at this day, taught by woful experience what damage this license of writing among themselves hath done them and that their speeches are not only weapons in the hands of their adversaries, but eyesores and stumbling blocks also to their remaining friends; under show of purging the world from the infection of all wicked and corrupt books and passages which are either against religion or against honesty and good manners, for which two purposes they have several officers who indeed do blot out much impiousness and filth, and therein well deserve both to be commended and imitated (whereto the Venetians add also a third, to let nothing pass that may be justly offensive to princes), have in truth withal pared and lopped off whatsoever in a manner their watchful eyes could observe, either free in disclosing their drifts and practices, or dishonourable to the clergy, or undutiful to the Papacy. These editions only authorised, all other are disallowed, called in, censured; with threats to whosoever shall presume to keep them; that no speech, no writing, no evidence of times past, no discourse of things present, in sum, nothing whatsoever may sound aught but holiness, honour, purity, integrity to the unspotted spouse of Christ and to his unerring Vicar; to the Mistress of Churches, to the Father of Princes ... and they brought forth in fine those _Indices Expurgatorii_ whereof I suppose they are now not a little ashamed, they having by misfortune lit into their adversaries’ hands from whom they desired by all means to conceal them.”[174]

D’Aguesseau, in a _Mémoire_ written in 1710, says: “It is well understood that the Index possesses in France no authority. It is sad to understand that it is still permitted to control literature in certain countries which have not known, as has France, how to uphold the freedom of a national Church. The Index has in fact been so misused as a power that it makes prohibition of not a few books which are by no means deserving of so much honour.”

In an essay by Villers on the _Spirit and Influence of the Reformation of Luther_ (which obtained the prize offered in 1802 by the French Institute for the best treatise on the question) the author finds ground for no little indignation concerning the restrictions upon books by a pope who, while issuing fulminations against Luther, gave full license to Ariosto. The writer goes on to say:

“In Spain, in Italy, and in Austria, the prohibitions and censures went much further, and in those countries heavy shackles have been imposed on the liberty of writing and of thinking.” The writer complains that “in public libraries in these countries, the works of Rousseau, of Voltaire, of Helvetius, of Diderot, and of other _esprits forts_, are kept under lock and key with the order that they shall not be communicated to any persons excepting to those who shall engage to refute their doctrines.”

He makes reference to the dismissal from office, in 1780, of a professor of a Bavarian university who had requested that a copy of Bayle’s _Critical Dictionary_ should be placed in the common library.

“In those countries is still maintained as far as possible the policy of the Middle Ages, under which the minds of men are to be kept on certain subjects in complete stupidity or in a state of emptiness so that they may later be filled with convenient doctrine or may be kept free for superstition.[175]

Mendham points out that

“It is not going beyond the truth to say that an almost perfect library might be formed from the books condemned by the papal Indexes, perfect indeed for all purposes of absolute and abundant utility. It would need only to have added to it a few Benedictine editions of the Fathers, histories and accounts of modern Roman affairs and the collection of the Bulls, Councils, etc.... It would also be somewhat lacking in English books, prolific as this island is in offensive and formidable heresy. The fact is, that the literary productions of England have come into contact or collision with the Italian only by means of translations. It is in this that we find in the Indexes the works of Swift, Tillotson, Sherlock, Robertson, Gibbon, and others.... There is a further detail, that these prohibitory and expurgatory instruments could only be put into execution among subjects of papal government.... Any attempt to enforce them in other States would have provoked hostilities with their heretical community with no prospect of advantage and with much risk of disadvantage to the Roman power.”[176]

Mendham contends that under the general policy of the Church, as expressed in its Indexes, the inference is legitimate that what the Indexes do not condemn they approve and sanction. It therefore follows that the authority from which those Indexes issue (an authority which is the highest in the Church) must be understood as approving and even sanctioning all doctrines or assertions presented by writers of her own communion which her condemning decrees have failed either to proscribe or to expurgate. (This contention is, it must be remembered, denied absolutely by the Jesuit Hilgers, writing in 1905.) In the examination held in 1825 on the state of Ireland, the Rev. M. O’Sullivan stated in one of his answers that in the case of an author of authority, such as Cardinal Bellarmin, the omission of criticism on the part of the authorities amounted to an approbation. The questioner drew the immediate inference: “Then you understand by the Index, not only a negative condemnation of all the books specified, but a positive affirmation of the doctrines or principles of all the books by Catholic writers not condemned.” Against this inference the witness was reported as making no protest. With respect to Bellarmin, it may be noted that his name was entered in the Index of Sixtus V because he had failed to affirm the direct power of the pope in matters temporal, an entry which may be considered as supporting the above inference.

[Sidenote: Ignorance of the Indexes]

That the works appearing under the form of Indexes, catalogues, etc., however various, still all belonging to, or coming from, Rome, are at least uncommon and extensively unknown, requires no proof more elaborate or unquestionable than the not only ready but forward declaration of ignorance by the very persons who should be presumed to be best acquainted with them, by well informed members of the ecclesiastic community which promulgates and enforces them. Charles Butler, writing in 1824, says: “Few of the Roman Catholics know of the existence of the _Index expurgatorius_.”[177] Dr. Murray, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, states before a committee of the House of Commons, in 1825:

“The _Index expurgatorius_ has no authority whatever in Ireland; it has never been received in these countries [_sic_] and I doubt very much whether there be ten people in Ireland who have ever seen it; it is a sort of censorship of books established in Rome and it is not even received in Spain, where they have a censorship of their own. In these countries, it has no force whatever.”[178]

Mendham trusts that “no equivocation lurks under the ambiguity of the epithet _expurgatorius_.”

Dr. Slevin, prefect of the College of Dunboyne, says (in 1826):

“Our Catholics will respect the prohibitions of the Congregation of the Index.”

In a work entitled _Church History of the English from the year 1500_, published under the name of Dod, (according to Mendham the real name of the author was Tootell), mention is made of a Council of Reformation. In