Chapter XII (1)

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. Arnauld, 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 chapter ix, pages 94 and 95, an extract is given from certain regulations framed by this council during the last decade of the 16th century. The wording is as follows:

“Publick and private libraries must be searched and examined
for books, as also all bookbinders, stationers and booksellers’
shops; and not only Heretical Books and Pamphlets but also
prophane, vane, lascivious and other such hurtful and dangerous
poysons, are utterly to be removed, burnt and suppressed, and
severe order and punishment appointed for such as shall conceal
these kind [_sic_] of Writing; and like order set down for
printing of good things for the time to come.”

* * * * *

“The earlier editions of the Index expurgatory,” says Mendham,
“were distributed with the utmost caution and were intended only
for the possession and the inspection of those to whom they were
necessary for the execution of the provisions. The reason is
obvious. It certainly was little desirable that the dishonest
dealings with the authors here censured should be known, either
to those who were injured by them and to whom they would offer
the opportunity of justifying themselves; or to the world at
large whose judgment they must know would in many instances be
at variance with their own. And evidently it was not to their
interest to discover and to point out those very passages
and writings, not only of reputed heretics but of reputed
Catholics, which exposed the most vulnerable parts of their own
system.”[179]

“The _Indices Expurgatorii_ are very good commonplace
books and repertories, by help of which we may presently find,
what any author (who has fallen under censure) has against them
[_i.e._ the Catholics]. We are directed through the Index
to the book, chapter, and line, where anything is spoken against
any superstition or error of Rome; so that he who has the
_Indices_ cannot want for testimonies against Rome.”[180]

In an article printed in 1861, in the _Katholik_ of Mayence, the writer says:

“We are prepared to place upon any inquirer the responsibility
of determining whether the Congregation of the Index in the
whole series of its operations has ever committed an essential
blunder.... The policy and method of ecclesiastical censorship
as carried out through the Index is the most moderate, the
most tolerant, and the wisest that could be conceived....
The Congregation of the Index secures in the shaping of its
judgments the service of the scholarship and of the consciences
and capable labour of wise and devout counsellors; and its
decisions may be accepted as the conclusions of a scientific
Areopagus which is entitled to the fullest respect and the most
implicit obedience; and he who does not render such obedience is
a stranger to, and an opponent of, the spirit of the Church.
... It is through the Index that the Holy See exercises one of
the most important of its functions.”[181]

In 1868, in an article having to do with the Council of the Vatican, the _Katholik_ says:

“The sting of the Index (to its critics) rests in this, that
it represents a judgment exercised by the highest authority in
matters of faith over individual knowledge. It is the sting of
infallible truth.... The Index has from the beginning been the
most trustworthy teacher of sound theology and defender of true
Faith.”

Bishop Baillès of Luçon, writing in 1864, says:

“The Index contains no single book the condemnation of which
was not arrived at under general rules.... It may be considered
as itself one great book in which are characterised with more
or less precision all the errors, heresies, and schisms of the
ages--a book which for all devout scholars may be accepted as
a trustworthy chart on which have been marked with a skilled
and trusted hand all sunken rocks and other perils of the deep.
The Index is the incomparable master work of the wisdom of
the Church.” Baillès says further: “No bibliographical work
can be considered as complete until it has been collated with
the Index.... The date of the prohibition of a book, taken in
connection with the date of its first publication, indicates the
time during which it has become more pernicious.... The Index is
to be classed as the most essential of critical bibliographies,
one which no library should be without.”

Bishop Plantier of Nismes, in a pastoral letter of 1857, describes the Congregation of the Index as “the throne of good sense, the magistracy of truth, and a tribunal each utterance of which constitutes an indispensable service to true philosophy.”[182]

Minister Jules Ferry, speaking in the French Senate, May 31, 1882, says:

“We will never recognise the decrees of the Congregation of
the Index. We propose to maintain the traditions of the French
State and of the Gallic Church. Where would the State be if the
decisions of the body which has placed its interdict upon the
great spirits of mankind, such as Descartes, Malebranche, Kant,
Renan, and has even condemned the Dictionary of Bouillet, should
be accepted as the law of the land?... The ground that has been
assigned for the condemnation of the Handbook of Compayré was
the statement contained in it ‘that it was more important for
the French child to know the names of the Kings of France than
those of the Kings of Judea.’... The Index-decree went over the
head of the Ambassador in Rome and of the Nuncius in Paris, in
order to start a conflagration in our State.

“In a manual by André Berthet, published in 1882, (which did
_not_ find its way into the Index), stand the following
questions: ‘What is God? I know not. What becomes of us after
death? I know not. Are you not ashamed of your ignorance? One
need not be ashamed not to know what has not yet been known to
any one.’”

[Sidenote: The Church and Science]

Father Searle (writing in 1895) maintains that the Church does not prohibit Catholics who are competent to undertake scientific investigation, from so doing. She places absolutely no obstacle in the way of their penetrating into all the facts of nature as it stands or of their considering the probable indications as to its past history or of their weighing actual historical testimony.... The Church forbids, as against reason, common-sense, and the welfare of man, liberty of thought on matters, whether in the material or spiritual order, which have been clearly demonstrated and definitely ascertained; she refuses to abandon it on those matters which are still open to reasonable question, as is the case with certain scientific hypotheses not as yet proven.[183]

Such a statement, if accepted to-day as authoritative, would make it evident that the policy of the Church in the 20th century has changed very materially from the policy that was in force, with some strenuousness, in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Hilgers points out that the Church is naturally much more concerned with the protection of the morality and of the spiritual nature of the people than with any formal intellectual development such as is to be secured from the study of the so-called classics. If a classical work, for instance, teaches that suicide is praiseworthy or is defensible, it is the duty of the Church to keep such work out of the hands of the believers. In like manner, the Church prohibits writings of any kind which make defence of the propriety of divorce or which make reference to divorce as if it were a necessary condition of society. The Church can further give its approval either formally or tacitly to no work which attacks the inspiration of the Scriptures or the binding force of scriptural doctrine, and must bring its condemnation upon any writer, however great he may be, whether Catholic or Protestant, historian or litterateur, philosopher or theologian, whose utterances tend to undermine faith in the word of God.[184]

There are, however, not a few expressions of opinion from Catholic sources which are by no means in accord with the conclusions reached by Father Hilgers as to the wisdom and beneficence of the literary policy of the Church of Rome. These critics have pointed out that the censors, whether in Rome, Madrid, or Paris, had been so seriously concerned with matters of doctrine, that they had given small measure of attention to publications of a scandalous character, and the influence of which was _contra bonos mores_.

[Sidenote: Sleumer on the Index]

A volume published in Osnabrück (Hanover) in August, 1906, may be cited as an example of cordial support given to the present censorship policy of the Roman Church by a loyal Catholic of North Germany. The author is Albert Sleumer, Doctor of Philosophy, and his book, issued under the title of _Index Romanus_, claims to present a complete record of all the German publications which have been placed upon the Roman Index, together with the titles of books other than German which have been condemned since 1870. Dr. Sleumer’s volume is issued with the approval of Hubert, Bishop of the historic diocese of Osnabrück. Sleumer’s volume had been originally issued in 1901 and now appears in a later revised edition. The contentions submitted by him in regard to the necessity of the Index, and as to the wisdom with which, from the beginning, the censorship of the Church has been conducted, are substantially in line with the position taken by Father Hilgers, whose larger and more important treatise has already been referred to. Sleumer is, like Hilgers, interested in citing examples of censorship by the State which are less consistent in principle and more extreme in application than similar actions by the authorities of Rome. He quotes, for instance, Thiers (whom he describes as “a well-known, free-thinking author of France”) saying, in 1830, that there could be no danger to the community in giving unrestricted freedom to the press.

“Truth alone,” says Thiers, “can have abiding influence; that
which is false can do no harm and in the end brings its own
refutation and no government can ever be injured by libellous
publications.”

In 1834, Thiers takes a different ground:

“The representatives of the People are having their influence
impaired by the falsifications of the Press.... The wickedness
and lack of responsibility on the part of the Press have brought
grave misfortunes upon the community.... It is essential for the
safety of the State that there should be a close supervision of
the Press.

We may remember that, between 1830 and 1834, the Bourbon government of Charles X had been overthrown and that Thiers was now a leader of influence under the administration of Louis Philippe.

Sleumer has himself no doubt that the press has to-day become “the most important expression of the ‘Evil One.’”[185]

“Who could,” he says, “deny to the State the right to control,
with all the authority that has been confided to it, the
development and the influence of a power that can undermine
the authority alike of the family, of the government, and of
the Church? But if such authority is necessary to maintain the
foundations of the State, who shall deny an equal right and duty
to those who are responsible for maintaining the foundations of
the Church?”[186]

In presenting the lists of the German books condemned, Sleumer points out that it is of course an impossibility for the Congregation of the Index to compile with any measure of completeness the titles of all the books deserving condemnation. He contends however, that the books selected may be accepted as fairly typical of the classes calling for condemnation and that the Index schedules can, therefore, be utilised by the more intelligent of the faithful for their own guidance and by the confessors who have the responsibility of directing the reading of their flocks.

[Sidenote: Tyrrell on the Index]

It is interesting to compare with the implicit acceptance given to the censorship policy of the modern Church by the scholarly Jesuit Father Hilgers and by the good Dr. Sleumer, the more discriminating and more critical analysis of this policy by a scholarly Jesuit in England, Father George Tyrrell, whose monograph entitled _A Much Abused Letter_, comes into print while this volume is passing through the press. Father Tyrrell had, it seems, been applied to for counsel by a devoted friend in the Church (since identified as St. George Mivart) who, in middle life, in connection with certain scientific pursuits and investigations, had found himself in perplexity as to the foundations of his faith. The friend had not been able to bring into accord the conclusions which he had arrived at through his scientific investigations with the latest utterances of the Church authorities having to do with the matters at issue. Seriously troubled at the thought of being forced out of relations with the Church in whose communion he had grown up, he had asked Father Tyrrell for advice as to his present duty. The Father had in his reply (which in compass and character constitutes an essay on the relations of faith with intellectual pursuits) taken the ground that there was nothing in the scientific conclusions that his friend had accepted which made it necessary for him to abandon the communion of the Church. It was the Father’s judgment that the spiritual relations of the believer were to be considered quite apart from his scientific opinions or intellectual development. The letter, which was intended to be purely personal and which had for its purpose the saving to the Church of a valued member, through some inadvertency came into publication, and, as a result, Father Tyrrell was dismissed from the Order of the Jesuits. The unauthorised publication of the letter had presented an incorrect, not to say a garbled, text, and the Father now felt at liberty to print the corrected text with some commentary on his own relations to the matters at issue. The document is of decided interest as an expression of the spiritual and intellectual status of a scholarly Catholic of to-day. The selection of opinions of Catholics on the present policy of the Church runs the risk of being unduly extended, but I think it in order to make one or two citations from the volume of this earnest English Jesuit.

“The express purpose of the Confidential Letter was to
dissuade my friend from a breach with the Church which would
mean an assertion of individualism and a denial of authority
and corporate life.... My whole line of argument was to
insist that the reasonable and moderate claims of the Church
over the individual were not invalidated by any extravagant
interpretation of those claims.... The heroes of moral romance
sail serenely through life’s darkest storms, cheered by the
certainty of their rectitude and by the hearty applause of a
thoroughly satisfied conscience. But in real life, it seems
to me that such serenity, and the undoubted force and energy
which it secures, are the privilege not so much of the heroic
but of the unreflective.[187]... Only when we take the word
‘faith’ in its ethical and evangelical sense, is it true to
say that loss of faith necessarily implies some moral weakness
or imperfection. But the saying is palpably false when faith
is made to stand for theological orthodoxy, for assent to a
dogmatic system. It is admitted on all hands that such faith
as this may, and often does, go with the most extreme moral
depravity--with sensuality and cruelty, with injustice, with
untruthfulness and hypocrisy, prejudice and superstition.
Temporal and selfish interests of one sort or another, or
more commonly still, an absolute lack of all sympathetic and
intelligent interest in their religion, will keep the great
majority of such men in the paths of orthodoxy as long as
orthodoxy is in public fashion and favour.[188]... For one
reason or another theologians have, for generations, been
letting their accounts get into disorder; they have trusted to
the one general principle of ‘authority’ for the quieting of
all possible doubts and have paid less and less attention to
particulars. They have forgotten that, by a necessary law of the
mind, the claims of authority will _de facto_ inevitably
be called in question as soon as the reasons on which those
claims rest are cancelled or outweighed by those which stand
against the particular teachings of authority; that though a
Catholic as such cannot consistently call this or that Catholic
doctrine in question, he can consistently call his Catholicism
in question.[189] However unwilling a man may be to raise doubts
in his own mind, he cannot live in an age and country like yours
[England] without these being thrust upon his attention. In
Mediaeval Spain, where index and inquisition were practically
workable methods of protection, it was otherwise. There and then
one needed only not to think in order to be at peace; here and
now one needs also not to see or hear or read or converse or
live.

There is now no educational grade so low as to be exempt
entirely from the spirit of criticism, whose influence is of
course still more strongly felt as we ascend to the higher
grades.[190]... Turning to the clergy, we find a great readiness
on the part of individuals to disclaim the honour [of having
authoritative knowledge] and also a curious vagueness as to the
precise depositaries for the final authorities [on intellectual
difficulties]. Taken individually, they frankly say that they
are themselves incompetent to deal with such problems, but
they imply that they have an unbounded confidence in their own
collectivity, or in certain persons (unknown and unknowable)
whose specialty it is to adjust the claims of sacred and secular
knowledge. Thus the responsibility, divided over the whole
multitude of the Church’s children, is shifted from shoulder
to shoulder, and comes to rest nowhere in particular;[191]...
The conservative positions (in the Church) are maintained by
ignorance, systematic or involuntary.... The close historic
study of Christian origin and development must undermine many
of our most fundamental assumptions in regard to dogmas and
institutions.... The sphere of the miraculous is daily limited
by the growing difficulty in verifying such facts, and the
growing facility of reducing either them or the belief in them
to natural and recognised causes.[192]... If the intellectual
defence of Catholicism breaks down (as far as the individual is
concerned) does it straightway follow that he should separate
himself from the communion of the Church? Yes, if theological
‘intellectualism’ be right; if faith mean mental assent to a
system of conceptions of the understanding; if Catholicism
be primarily a theology or at most a system of practical
observances regulated by that theology. No, if Catholicism be
primarily a life, and the Church a spiritual organism in whose
life we participate, and if theology be but an attempt of that
life to formulate and understand itself--an attempt which may
fail wholly or in part without affecting the value and reality
of life itself.[193]... Must we not distinguish between the
collective subconsciousness of the ‘People of God’ and the
consciously formulated mind and will of the governing section of
the Church? May not our faith in the latter be at times weak or
nil, and yet our faith in the former strong and invincible?...
Let us recognise that, in spite of its noisy advertisements,
this self-conscious, self-formulating Catholicism of the
thinking, talking, and governing minority is not the whole
Church, but only an element (however important) in its
constitution.[194]... Faith is the very root and all-permeating
inspiration of life. Not the faith of mere obedience to
authoritative teaching, which is at best a condition of
spiritual education ... not the faith of merely intellectual
assent to the historical and metaphysical assertions of a
theology that claims to be miraculously guaranteed from
errancy. After all, your quarrel is not with the Church, but
with the theologians [we are to bear in mind that Tyrrell is
still addressing his friend whose scholarship has brought him
into doubt]; not with ecclesiastical authority, but with a
certain theory as to the nature and limits and grades of that
authority, and of the value, interpretation, and obligation of
its decisions.[195]... Who formulate these decisions, determine
their value, interpret them to us; who have fabricated the whole
present theology of authority and imposed it upon us, but the
theologians? Who but the theologians themselves have taught
us that the concensus of theologians cannot err? These are,
however, mortal, fallible, ignorant men like ourselves.”[196]

May not Catholicism, like Judaism, have to die in order that it may live again in a greater and grander form? Has not every organism its limits of development after which it must decay, and be content to survive in its progeny? Wine-skins stretch, but only within measure; for there comes at last a bursting-point when new ones must be provided.

[Sidenote: Briggs on Censorship]

Another volume expressing the views of scholarly Catholic believers in regard to the present intellectual policy of the Church comes into print in 1906 while these pages are going through the press. It bears the title of _The Papal Commission and the Pentateuch_ and is the work of two authors, the Reverend Charles A. Briggs, Professor of Theology and Symbolics, of the Union Theological Seminary of New York, and Baron Friedrich von Hügel, at present of Cambridge, England. The work and career of Dr. Briggs are, of course, familiar to all who have knowledge of the issues of later years between the creeds and dogmas of the Churches and of the difficulties of the great scholars of the present generation who have been investigating the texts and records upon which these creeds and dogmas have been based. Of these scholars, Dr. Briggs is known as one of the most authoritative and conscientious and also as one possessing the greatest reverence for the purposes and the spiritual power of revealed religion. Dr. Briggs, now a member of the Episcopal Church, has from time to time brought into expression certain ideals in regard to the development of the Church Universal. If one understands him aright, he looks forward to the reconstruction, under the new conditions of the twentieth century, of a world’s Church or Church Universal, which was so nearly realised under the very different conditions of the fifteenth century. He is, therefore, sympathetically interested in the policy of the Church of Rome and he is in close personal relations with not a few of the scholarly leaders of that Church. He has united with his friend Baron von Hügel in the production of a monograph made up of two letters, one from himself and one from Baron von Hügel, which have for their purpose the analysis and criticism of the conclusions arrived at by the recent Papal Commission in regard to the origin and the history of the Pentateuch. The report of the Commission (of the text of which I have no direct knowledge) appears to have taken strong ground against the results of the so-called higher scholarship, that is to say, of the latest investigations concerning the origin and the formation of the writings going to make up the Pentateuch. Dr. Briggs cites from the record of the Papal Commission the statement that

“certain faulty readings in the text of the Pentateuch may be
ascribed to the error of an amanuensis concerning which it
is lawful to investigate and judge according to the laws of
criticism.... But in so doing ‘Due regard must be paid to the
judgment of the Church.’ It is admitted [says Briggs], (by
the Papal Commission) that investigation and judgment must be
‘according to the laws of criticism.’ If this is so, then it
necessarily follows that the laws of criticism must determine
the entire investigation, and not merely any definite part of
it.”[197]

[Sidenote: Von Hügel on Censorship]

The Baron’s division of the monograph applies, of course, more directly to the subject of the present chapter as an expression of the views of a scholarly Catholic on the present intellectual policy of the Church. He writes as follows:

‘For you cannot teach whom you do not understand, and
you cannot win the man with whom you cannot share certain
presuppositions.... The cultivated non-Roman Catholic world
is, in part unconsciously, often slowly yet everywhere surely,
getting permeated and won by critical standards and methods.
A system cannot claim to teach all the world and at the same
time erect an impenetrable partition-wall between itself and
the educated portion of that world.[198]... This opinion of
the Biblical Commission is surely but one link in a chain of
official attempts at the suppression of Science and Scholarship,
beginning with Erasmus and culminating with Richard Simon and
Alfred Loisy, but never entirely absent, as witness the lives
of countless workers, well-known to their fellow-workers....
When and where has Rome finally abandoned any position however
informal and late its occupation, and however demonstrated
its untenableness? Where, in particular, is the case of its
permission to hold critical and historical views even distantly
comparable in their deviation from tradition to those here
presented by us? But if no such cases can be found, then,
surely, Rome stands utterly discredited....”[199]

The Baron recalls that, on January 13th, 1897, there appeared,

“approved and confirmed by Pope Leo XIII, a Decree of the Holy
Office, in the highest Roman tribunal next after the Pope
himself, and which, unlike the Biblical Commission, claims
directly doctrinal authority, giving a negative answer to the
question, ‘Whether it is safe to deny, or at least to call in
doubt, the authenticity of the text of St. John, in the First
Epistle, chapter v, verse 7, “For there are three that give
testimony in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit,
and these three are one.”’”[200]

The Baron closes his letter (which is addressed to his friend Dr. Briggs) with the words:

“That we can and ought, both of us, to pray, to will, and to
work that the advisers of the chief Bishop of Christendom,
in the manifold mixed subject-matters which they have to
prepare and to bring before him, may have a vivid realisation
of the difficulty and complexity, the importance and rights
and duties of those other departments of life--Science and
Scholarship--lest these forces, ignored or misunderstood, bring
inevitable obstruction and eclipse to those direct and central
interests and ideals which are the fundamental motives of all
spiritual life, and the true mainspring and impregnable citadel
of the Christian, Catholic, and Roman Church.”[201]

I can but feel that these utterances of sane and reverent Catholic believers of to-day are expressions of a state of mind with which the Church of Rome will have to reckon in the near future unless the realm of its believers is to be restricted to those who are the less sane and less scholarly and, to those who, to put it frankly, have a smaller measure of intellectual integrity.

[Sidenote: Conclusions]

It may be concluded that the general regulations of the Index and the insistence on the part of the Church of the right and the obligation of supervising the output of the printing-press and of controlling and directing the reading of the faithful, did exert a restrictive influence on the production and distribution of literature. This influence was, however, limited to the territories in which the machinery of the Inquisition was in active existence. In the regions north of the Alps and the Pyrenees, the Index regulations brought about but a spasmodic and inconsiderable interference with the distribution of the works of Protestant writers. Outside of the lands of the Inquisition, the Church had no other means of hindering the reading of heretical books than to declare the same to be deadly sin and to threaten the delinquents with such penalties as excommunication. The records of applications for dispensations present, as Reusch points out,[202] evidence that scholarly Catholics made frequent opportunity for infringing the censorship prohibitions. It would in fact be difficult to specify any territory in which the Index regulations were accepted cheerfully and thoroughly. It is certain that, even in the most faithful of the Catholic communities, bitter complaints arose from time to time on the part of the scholars in regard to the destruction of valuable literature and the resulting interference with scholarly work. There were also complaints of a different kind. Those who were interested in preserving the true faith from being undermined by heretical doctrine, came to the realisation of the fact that heretical books were, through the operations of the Index, brought to the attention of many who otherwise would never have known of their existence.

In 1549, Gabriel Putherbeus, writing to Theotimus, complains that the books prohibited by the Paris divines were being read by people to whom they would never have become known excepting through the censorship lists.[203] Gratianus Verus writes that the Index of Paul IV had had a most pernicious influence in making known to Catholic readers a long list of Protestant writings. Protestant scholars utilised the catalogues in the Index very largely as recommendations of books that were deserving of consideration. The more thoughtful Catholics were ready to recognise that, as an offset to the importance of protecting the faithful from the influence of heretical doctrines, the publication of the Index-lists brought serious disadvantages. The reading of the Scriptures was rendered unduly difficult for many to whom the instruction therein contained should prove of service. The study of the Bible, of the works of the Fathers of the Church, and of much of the literature of scholarship, was seriously hampered even for devout scholars. The pursuit of scientific studies by Catholic students and instructors was placed under great disadvantages through the prohibition and cancellation even of such works of reference as lexicons, when these bore the names of Protestant compilers. The opportunity of utilising such lexicons when specific permission had been secured from bishops or from inquisitors could not sufficiently meet the difficulty. The possibility of securing expurgated editions of books the original and complete text of which had fallen under condemnation, proved in practice to be too slight a dependence. The printer-publishers, who had been subjected to loss, and often to very serious loss, through the cancellation of the original edition, were as a rule not encouraged to make the further investment required for the printing of the “corrected” and expurgated text. It was also the case that these expurgations were frequently made very heedlessly, and with a full measure of ignorance of the subject-matter of the book, and of the precise purport of the original text. As a result, if the eliminations ordered by the censors were carried out with precision, the text as it remained presented no adequate sense. On the other hand, the insertion of any changes whatsoever, or of any new material in the expurgated text, subjected the reissue to a further censorship and to the risk of a second cancellation.

In the States in which, as in Spain and Portugal, the entire control of the censorship was left with the Inquisition, the scholars and students were practically deprived of the use of foreign literature. Writers like Pallavicini congratulate themselves that the dread of the Index (that is to say, of course, of the penalties of the Index regulations) has had the effect of checking very largely the printing and the distribution of books, and must, according to his view, have served to discourage the writing of books. It is evidently his point of view that the possible advantages from active literary production are more than offset by the resulting evils.