Index Librorum Prohibitorum

The Index librorum prohibitorum (index of the prohibited books) - also called Index expurgatorius , nostri Indices librorum prohibitorum juxta exemplar romanum jussu sanctissimi domini - is a list of works that the roman catholics were not authorized with reading, of the “pernicious books”, accompanied by the rules of the Church about the books. The goal of this list was to prevent the reading of books contradicting or criticizing the Church and to avoid thus that the faithful ones are not diverted of their Foi.

The first Roman Index was published by the pope Paul IV in 1559 at the request of the Inquisition, and was confirmed in 1564. The Congregation of the Index was instituted in 1571. The Index was regularly updated to the edition of 1948, by addition of the Congregation of the Enquiry or the pope. The list was not a simple work of reaction; the authors were enjoints to defend their work, which they could correct and republish if they wished to avoid prohibition, and a censure before publication was encouraged.

In 1948, the 32e and last edition contained four thousand titles censured for various reasons: Heresy, immorality, sexual license, politically incorrect, etc One found there writers and philosophers known such as Diderot, Sigmund Freud, Pascal, Rousseau, Descartes, Érasme, Laurence Sterne, Voltaire, Daniel Defoe, Nicolas Copernic, Honore de Balzac, Pierre Larousse for his dictionary, Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as the Dutch sexologist Theodor Hendrik van of Velde, author of the handbook of sex the perfect Marriage .

The setting with the most famous index in the History of the Church is probably that of the writings of Copernic on the Héliocentrisme (March 5th 1616). The judgment of Galileo intervened in this context, even if one is not completely sure today that the real and complete reason of the judgment was well that one.

Certain settings with the Index were of nature political: in 1926, the newspaper the French Action, movement national line, was added there. Although one does not find there works of characters like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, one finds there the Myth of the twentieth century of Alfred Rosenberg, regarded as the book founder of the Nazisme with Mein Kampf . One took the care to condemn in Latin some to it Edgar Bauer , today completely forgotten, but not Bruno Bauer for which Jesus had never existed. The Congregation of the Index was not an impeccably oiled mechanics but an administration like another, and it acted like an administration.

The last book put at the Index was, in 1961, under the pontificate of the happy Jean XXIII, the Life of Jesus of the abbot Jean Steinmann.

The effects of the Index felt well beyond the catholic world. For a long time, that it is with the Quebec or in Poland, to find copies of the prohibited works was difficult, particularly apart from the important cities. The Index ceased being an official list on June 14th 1966 under Paul VI after the council of the Vatican II, mainly for practical reasons.

The expression “being put at the Index” remained in the language running to indicate the fact of being censured.

See too

Censure

External bonds

Facsimiled Index
Index Librorum Prohibitorum 1948 - List
Seen censured French authors [http://www.courcelle-bruno.nom.fr/LivresInterdits.html]

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