Abrégé de l’histoire ecclésiastique de Fleury. Decr. 1769.
Acton, Lord. Zur Geschichte des vaticanischen Conciles; Sendschreiben an einen deutschen Bischof. 1871.
Addison, Jos. Remarks on Italy. 1729.
Albertus Magnus. De Secretis Mulierum. 1604.
Alciphron, by Berkeley. 1742.
Anglica, Normanica, etc., a veteribus scripta, etc. d.c. By Walsingham, etc., edit. Camden. 1605.
These chronicles are, it is to be noted, to be permitted when corrected; but for such corrections they have already waited for centuries.
Apologie de Jansénius, évesque, etc. 1654.
There are no less than sixteen entries under the term “Apology.”
Arnauld Antoine (fils).
Seventeen works are entered under the name of this Jansenist writer. The decrees are of date 1656–1659.
Arrest de la cour de Parlement.
Under this term are six entries, covering acts of the Parliament of Paris from 1680–1744, the condemnation of which it is considered important to confirm 250 years later.
Augustinus. Janseni. 1654.
A condemnation that recalls a long and bitter doctrinal contest.
Balzac, oeuvres de. 1841, 1842, 1864.
Baronius, Vincentius.
Three works. 1672.
Bayle, Pierre. Opera omnia. 1698 to 1757.
This is followed by entries of four separate works of the same author.
Bentham, Jeremie.
Four works, of which two are entered in the French editions. 1819–1835.
Béranger. Chansons. 1834.
Bert, Paul. L’Instruction Civile. 1882.
Blackwell, George, Archpriest of England. Letter to Clement VIII. 1614.
Boileau, Jacobus. Historia Flagellantium. 1668.
Book of Common Prayer. London. 1714.
Bossuet, Évesque. Résponse à M. de Tencin. 1745.
Browne, Thomas. Religio Medici.
Bruno, Giordano. Opera omnia. 1600.
Bunsen, C. C. J. Hippolytus and his Age. 1853.
Burnet, Gilbert. The Reformation of the Church of England. 1714.
„ „ History of his own Times. 1731.
Camerarius, Johannes. Opera omnia. 1654.
Casaubonus, Isaacus. De Rebus Sacris, etc. 1614.
„ „ Epistolae. 1640.
Catechisme, Catechismo, and Catechism.
Under this heading and that of Katechism there are twenty-five entries in the four languages, under dates from 1602 to 1876.
Charron, Pierre. De la Sagesse. 1605.
Collins, Anthony. On Free Thinking. 1715.
Combe, George. Manuel de phrénologie. 1837.
Comte, Auguste. Cours de philosophie positive. 1864.
Condorcet. Tableau historique du progrés de l’esprit humain. 1827.
Cudworth, Ralph. Intellectual System of the Universe. 1739.
Darwin, Erasmus. Zoönomia. 1817.
Descartes, Renatus. Meditationes de prima philosophia. 1663.
Diderot. Encyclopaedie raisonnée des sciences. 1804.
Discovery of a New World. Wilkins, John. 1701.
Draper, Jno. Wm. History of the Conflicts between Science and Religion. 1876.
The much more comprehensive and incisive work on the same subject by Andrew D. White escapes attention.
Dumas, Alexandre (pater). Omnes fabulae amatoriae. 1863.
Dumas, Alexandre (filius). Omnes fabulae amatoriae.
Earle, John C. The Spiritual Body. 1878.
Earle, John C. The Forty Days. 1878.
Enfantin, Barthélemy P. Science de l’homme. 1859.
Erigena, Johannes Scotus. De divisione naturae, etc. 1684.
Fénelon. Explication des Maximes des Saintes, etc. 1665.
Ferri, Enrico. Sociologia criminale [and four other treatises]. 1895–6.
Ferrière, Émile. Le Darwinisme [and seven other treatises]. 1892–3.
Feydeau, Ernest. Omnes fabulae amatoriae. 1864.
Fontenelle, B. L. La république des philosophes, etc. 1779.
Fourier, Chas. Le Nouveau monde industriel et sociétaire. 1835.
Frederic II (of Prussia). Oeuvres du philosophe de Sans-Souci. 1760.
Frohschammer, Jacob. Ueber den Ursprung der menschlichen Seelen [and five other treatises]. 1857–1873.
Gandolphy, Peter. A Defence of the Ancient Faith, etc. 1818.
Gibbon, E. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1783.
Goblet d’Alviella, E. L’idée de Dieu d’après l’anthropologie, etc. 1893.
Goldsmith, Oliver. Abridged History of England, etc. 1823.
Gregorovius, F. Geschichte der Stadt Rom, etc. 1874.
Grotius, Hugo. Opera omnia theologica [and five other works, comprising practically Opera omnia]. 1757.
Guicciardini, F. Loci duo ob rerum, etc. 1603.
Hallam, H. Constitutional History of England. 1833.
„ „ View of the State of Europe. 1833.
Herbert de Cherbury. De Veritate, etc. 1633.
Histoire, Historia, De Religione, etc.
Under these terms are entered thirty-six different works.
History of the Devil, as well ancient as modern. Defoe, Daniel. 1743.
Hobbes, Thomas. Opera omnia. 1703.
Hugo, Victor. Notre Dame de Paris. 1834.
„ „ Les Misérables. 1864.
Jacob (filius) Chaviv., etc. By Rabbi Jehuda Arje de Mutina.
The title is reprinted in Hebrew.
Jacobus I. Rex Angliae. [Greek: Basilikon dôron.] 1606.
„ Meditatio in orationem dominicam [and two other treatises]. 1619.
Jansenius, C. Augustinus, etc. 1641, 1642, 1654.
Kant, I. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 1827.
Lamartine, A. Souvenirs, etc., d’un voyage en Orient [and two other works]. 1836.
Lamé Fleury, J. R. L’Histoire Ancienne [and five other histories]. 1857.
Lamenais, H. F. R. Paroles d’un croyant [and six other works]. 1834.
Lanfrey, Pierre. Histoire politique des papes. 1875.
Lang, Andrew. Myth, Ritual, and Religion.[158] 1896.
Launoy, J. Veneranda romanae ecclesiae circa simoniam traditio [and no less than twenty-six other works by this much condemned author]. 1688.
Leigh, Edward. Annotations upon the New Testament, 1735.
Lessing, G. E. Religion Saint Simonienne, etc. 1835.
Lettre, Lettura, Letter, and Lettres.
Under these headings are seventy-eight titles.
Limborch, P. Historia inquisitionis, etc. [and two other books]. 1694.
Lipsius, J. Orationes, etc. 1613.
Locke, J. Essay on the Human Understanding. 1734.
„ The Reasonableness of Christianity. 1737.
MacCrie, Th. History of the Reformation in Italy. 1836.
Malebranche, N. Traité de la Nature et de la Grâce [and six other treatises]. 1689.
Mandement.
Under this heading are fourteen entries, dating from 1667 to 1729.
Mandeville, B. de. The Fable of the Bees, etc. 1744.
„ „ Thoughts on Religion. 1732.
Mansfeld, R. Diatriba theologica. 1690.
Manual, the Catholic Christian’s New Universal, etc. 1770.
Marmontel. Belisaire, etc. d.c. 1767.
Marvell, A. The Growth of Popery and of Arbitrary Power in England. 1730.
Maurice, F. D. Theological Essays. 1854.
Mémoire and Memoria.
Under this heading are thirty-four entries, dating from 1667 to 1817, including several having to do with the Bull Unigenitus, the Gallican Church, etc.
Under this title is entered the Mémoires de la vie du Comte de Grammont, which was not condemned until 1817.
Merle d’Aubigné, J. H. Histoire de la Réformation, etc. 1852.
Michelet, J. Bible de l’humanité [and five other works]. 1840–1896.
Mill, J. S. Principles of Political Economy. 1856.
Milton, John. Literae pseudo-senatus anglicani, etc. 1694.
Mivart, St. George. Happiness in Hell. 1892–1893.
From “Nineteenth Century.”
Molinos, M. de. Opera omnia. 1687.
Montaigne, M. de. Les Essais. 1676.
Montesquieu, C. de S. Esprit des lois. 1751.
„ „ Lettres persanes. 1751.
Morgan, Lady S. Journal of Residence in Italy. 1822.
Murger, H. Omnes fabulae amatoriae. 1864.
Pascal, B. Pensées. 1789.
Poza, J. B. Opera omnia. 1628–1631.
This condemnation represents the confirmation or re-assertion on the part of Leo of the position taken by his predecessors three and a half centuries back, against the contentions of the Spanish Jesuits and of the Spanish Church.
Pressensé, E. de. Le Concile du Vatican. 1876.
Puffendorf, S. von. De jure naturae et gentium [and four other treatises]. 1711.
Quesnel, P. 1708–1720.
A series of works comprising practically Opera omnia.
Quinet, E. Le génie des religions. 1844.
Ranke, L. Die Römischen Päpste. 1841.
Renan, E. Vie de Jésus [and nineteen other works]. 1859–1892.
This entry could more conveniently have been made Opera omnia.
Richardson, S. Pamela. 1744.
Rocaberti, H. Vida y Dottrina [and eleven other treatises]. 1688.
Roscoe, Wm. Life of Leo X. 1825.
Rosmini. Enciclopedia di science e lettere. 1889.
Rousseau, J. J. Le Contrat Social [and four other works]. 1766.
Sabatier, P. Vie de S. Francis d’Assisi. 1894.
Saint-Simon, C. H. Science de l’homme. 1859.
Sand, George. Omnes fabulae amatoriae. 1840–1863.
Sarpi, Paolo. Historia sopra gli beneficii ecclesiastici, [and three other treatises]. 1676.
Scaliger, J. Epistolae. d.c. 1633.
Sismondi, J. C. L. Histoire des républiques italiennes, etc. 1817.
Spinoza, B. de. Opera posthuma. 1690.
Stendhal, H. B. de. Omnes fabulae amatoriae. 1864.
Stephanus, R. Ad censuras theologorum parisiensium, etc. 1624.
Sterne, L. A Sentimental Journey. 1819.
Strauss, D. J. Das Leben Jesu. 1838.
Stroud, Wm. The Physical Causes of the Death of Christ. 1878.
Sue, E. Omnes fabulae amatoriae. 1852.
Swedenborg, E. Principia verum naturalium, etc. 1738.
Taine, H. A. Histoire de la littérature anglaise. 1866.
Testament, le nouveau (printed at Mons), 1668, [together with three other editions in French, one in Dutch, and three in Italian, 1709–1820].
Thomas Kempisius. De imitando Christo. 1723.
Tillotson, Jean. Sermons, traduits de l’anglois. 1725.
Volney, C. F. Les ruines, etc., des empires. 1821.
Voltaire, F. M. A. Oeuvres. 1752.
This entry is followed by thirty-eight separate titles of the books of Voltaire which called for special condemnation.
Whately, R. Elements of Logic. 1851.
White, Thomas. Opera omnia. 1655–1663.
Wilkins, J. Discovery of a New World. 1701.
Zola, É. Opera omnia. 1894–1898.
Zwicher, G. Monks and their Doctrine. 1898.
2. Index Revision and Reform, 1868–1880.—Pomponio Leto reports[159] that Pope Pius IX had instituted, in addition to the six existing commissions of the council, a seventh commission placed under the direction of Cardinal de Luca, which was to be charged with the consideration of biblical material and of the revision of the Index. It appears, however, that this commission held but one or two sessions in 1868 and after 1869 was not again called together.
From time to time suggestions have been submitted for the reform of Index proceedings. In 1870, eleven French bishops took the ground that no work by a Catholic writer should be condemned by the Congregation unless and until the author had had an opportunity of being heard in its defence and of replying to criticisms of any special passages. It seemed to these bishops outrageous that, possibly on the ground of the lack of correct understanding of certain individual passages, important books, representing the serious labour of devout scholars, should be placed under the same class of condemnation as that applied to godless and heretical writings or to books contra bonos mores.[160]
The bishops of Germany joined in the demand for a reshaping of the rules of the Index for which in a number of territories it had not been practicable to secure obedience. They also demanded that in the future no book by a Catholic writer should be condemned until a hearing had been given by the bishops to its author. It was contended that by means of such direct action the injury of an official censorship would in a large number of cases be avoided. In a number of monographs printed in 1869 and 1870, the contention was maintained that there should be either a discontinuance of the operations of the Congregation of the Index or a thoroughgoing reform in the whole method of Church censorship.[161]
Segesser says, in his monograph entitled Am Vorabende des Conciliums: “We do not admit that the Roman Index as now carried on fulfils the purpose for which it was instituted. It seems to us that the present censorship system, together with the method of securing from repentant authors ‘retractions’ and ‘submissions,’ leads only to serious misapprehensions and confusions of judgment.... The responsibility ought to be left to the bishops to take action, each for his own diocese, concerning the books produced within the territory for which he is responsible.” One of the editors of the Mainzer Katholik, writing in 1869, says[162]: “We accept the view which is now being presented very generally throughout the Church, that the reconstitution of the organisation and methods of Roman censorship is essential in order to meet the very great changes in the conditions of literary production which have come about since the time of Benedict XIV.” Writing again later in the year, the same writer says:[163]
“It may well be doubted whether it is practicable, under the present social conditions, to enforce any prohibition in regard to the reading of books and whether, therefore, such prohibitions are not pernicious rather than helpful.... We are inclined to the belief that it would be wiser, in place of leaving the books to be passed upon in Rome, to place the responsibility for their examination in the hands of the bishop of the diocese.... We do not recommend that the Index should be abandoned, but it should certainly be revised in order to meet the new conditions of the present time. We submit with all deference the suggestion that a theological literary organ might properly be published in Bonn, and similar journals, speaking under the authority of the Church, in such centres as Munich and Tübingen. Such journals would, with their conclusions, criticisms, and recommendations, carry weight and wholesome influence among all faithful readers in the Church. A central organ of literature, speaking with all the authority of the Holy See and Church universal, should be published in Rome. In such a journal should be presented the record of theoloical literary activities throughout the whole world. The conclusions and criticisms issued under the official authority of Rome would in themselves constitute a standard of theological orthodoxy and of literary form.... For such an undertaking, the support and the interest of devout Catholics throughout the world would be assured. Its influence would have the effect of an Index or censorship of literature. Such a journal should serve as a guide and an inspiration towards a true Catholic life.”
A periodical which was in existence for a few years during the last decade of the 18th century appears to have had some such purpose as this writer considers important. The Giornale Ecclesiastico, a weekly journal published in Rome from July, 1785, to June, 1798, presented, together with Church news and general information, a weekly review of books. The journal included further the decrees issued, during this period of fourteen years, by the censorship authorities of Rome, against the books selected for condemnation. The first volume recorded in these decrees is a treatise entitled Was ist der Pabst? published anonymously but identified as the work of Eybel. It receives the honour of a condemnation, not in the ordinary form, but in an elaborate “constitution” printed over the signature of Pope Pius VI. The treatise had been issued at a critical time when the Pope found ground for alarm at the reformations announced by Joseph II. One of the works condemned in the later decrees was the Pensées of Pascal, with Voltaire’s notes.
The criticism has been made more than once on the part of Protestant historians of the Index that the record of the conflicting decisions given by successive popes in regard to literary productions itself constitutes a substantial argument against the reasonableness of the doctrine of infallibility. This doctrine became officially one of the dogmas of the Church at the Council of the Lateran in 1870. It is the understanding that, while the declaration of the dogma was made this year for the first time, under the necessary interpretation of such dogma, it would be held to apply to the utterances of all the popes preceding Pius IX. The orthodox interpreters of Catholic doctrine point out, however, that the claim for infallibility does not cover all classes of papal utterances. Father Searle, for instance (writing in New York, 1895), makes the following statement in regard to the orthodox interpretation of this dogma:
“The special prerogative which Catholics now universally believe to have been conferred on the Pope by the Divine Founder of Christianity has a very special and limited range, although certainly quite complete within its proper domain. It consists in the Pope’s ability to decide questions concerning religion about which there may be room for doubt in the minds of Christians, on account either of the large number of adherents or of the apparently plausible arguments on both sides of the question.... It should be clearly understood that it is not the office of the Pope to act as one inspired or to receive or give to the world any new revelation. It is merely to decide what the original deposit (as we call it) of faith was, as committed by Christ to his Apostles; or in other words to repeat the decision which the Apostles themselves would have made in regard to the doctrines of Christianity. Still less is it the office of the Pope to settle matters of science or ordinary questions of fact. Not but what the domains claimed by science and the domains claimed by faith may sometimes overlap; this may be the case for instance to some extent in the matter of evolution, especially if evolution is supposed to apply to the human soul, or it may apply in the cases in which science asserts that matter existed from all eternity.... And even questions of historical fact may belong to faith by being necessarily connected with some of its dogmas, or by forming part of the inspired record of Holy Scripture. There would, for instance, be a conflict of history or of geology with the Church, if it should be asserted in the name of either of these branches of learning that the account of the Deluge was simply a myth. But conflicts of this sort are rare. Practically no Catholic is impeded in any kind of study or investigation by any fear of papal condemnation.... The impression of Protestants that we Catholics believe the Pope to be incapable of error, no matter what he is speaking about or under what circumstances he expresses his thought, is of course without foundation.... The Catholics do, however, believe that the Pope is able to make infallible decisions with regard to morals as well as to faith.... But it by no means follows that because the Pope can solemnly instruct the faithful infallibly, he always or on all occasions holds or gives utterance to correct views with regard to right or wrong.... We hold simply that God assists the Pope in a special way to prevent him from making a decision at all if the way is not reasonably clear to it; or if God allows the decision to be made, to insure that this decision shall contain nothing contrary to the truth.”[164]
It seems probable from the position taken by Father Searle that in the cases in which the utterances of the Papacy have by later events been shown to be based upon error or have even directly been recalled or corrected by later papal utterances, the Catholic of to-day would take the ground that these erroneous utterances did not belong to the class for which infallibility was claimed. Under this class of exceptions would doubtless be placed the condemnation of Galileo, and also the condemnation of certain Catholic books maintaining doctrines not accepted at the time as dogmas of the Church but which later secured official acceptance.
3. The Index and the Liberal Catholics, in 1897. “Romanus” and “The Tablet.”—In October, 1897, after the promulgation of the first Index of Leo XIII and at the time when announcements concerning the scheme of the second Index were being made, a writer in the Contemporary Review undertook to present views in regard to the literary policy of the Church of Rome and its responsibilities towards the intellectual development of the century. The writer subscribes himself “Romanus” and writes as a faithful and conscientious member of the Catholic Church. He claims to be expressing the apprehensions of a large body of educated Catholics in England and on the Continent as to the probable loss of influence on the part of the Church and of the weakening of its hold on men possessing both education and conscience, in case its present rulers should persist in maintaining a mediaeval policy in regard to intellectual matters. “Romanus” insists that the Church must accept and abide by all of the conclusions of modern science the foundations of which are shown to be thoroughly assured, and that unless the Church may make science its own, it must of necessity lose influence with conscientious students throughout the world.
I cite below some of the more noteworthy utterances in this article.
“Leo XIII,” says “Romanus,” “has inspired respect and sympathy even among men who are strongly opposed to Catholicism.” He goes on to speak of Leo as that “gentle, cultured, conciliatory pontiff, the promoter of historical research, the friend of the French Republic.” The main purpose of his article is to show that “liberal Catholicism,” so far from having ceased to exist, has only been transformed into a much more “formidable movement.”
“Liberal Catholics,” says “Romanus,” “are fully aware that the enormous power of the Church for good would be fatally impaired by an injury to its organisation, and they would regard as intrinsically absurd and unscientific any attempt to reverse the process of development. Their desire is, therefore, not to destroy, but to strengthen the authority of the Church by diverting it from proceedings detrimental to its own welfare.... They are profoundly convinced that the Catholic Church is the one great influence for promoting the spiritual welfare of humanity. They believe that there exists no power comparable to it for the promotion of virtue and of all that is highest, noblest, purest, and most self-denying and generous among mankind. They are convinced that it is the most complete—the only complete—organisation for bringing about among all classes, all nations, and all races, obedience to, and fulfilment of, Christ’s two great commandments wherein lay all the law and the prophets—love of God and of our neighbour.
“Such Catholics also believe that the Church supplies, to our minds, as no other yet existing organisation can supply, means of access and address to their Creator through a worship such as the world has never before known—traditional, majestic, soul-satisfying, and, above all, profoundly spiritual, wherein the divine and human meet and cor ad cor loquitur.
“By its sacraments, every stage of human life is elevated and sanctified, the wounded conscience renovated and strengthened, the broken and contrite heart comforted and consoled, the various afflictions of life mitigated and its joys, as well as its sorrows, refined and consecrated.... These liberal Catholics not only look upon Catholicity as the special home and the most effective aid to what is good, but also as an influence making for beauty and the culture of art. Its influence with respect to philosophy they regard as of priceless value, nor do they think lightly of its service to literature. Profoundly influenced by such convictions, the adherents to ‘Liberal Catholicism’ must evidently desire to maintain unimpaired that wonderful organisation of which Rome is the head.... Liberal Catholics declare themselves to be devoted to the discovery, the promulgation, and the establishment of truth in every field of knowledge, historical, critical, and scientific, especially in what bears upon religion. Sincere Theists, they are profoundly convinced not only that the God of truth can never be served by a lie, but that the cause of religion can never be promoted by clever dodges, by studiously ambiguous utterances, by hushing up unpleasant truths, or (when such can no longer be hidden) by misrepresenting or minimising their significance—trying by a series of clever devices to disguise the consequences which logically follow from them. As St. Paul strenuously opposed himself to the circumcision of the flesh, so would the Liberal Catholics oppose themselves to the circumcision of the intellect. These believers are not so foolish as to be blind to the fact that a body so vast and complex in structure as the Catholic Church must move slowly. It neither surprises nor shocks them that new astronomical, geological, or physiological truths should not be accepted with alacrity or that discoveries as to the Old and New Testaments and startling facts with respect to the organisation of the Church in the first two centuries should not be welcomed with enthusiasm and loudly proclaimed.... What liberalism does not understand, what it vehemently protests against and deems fatal to the welfare of the Church, is not reticence, but declarations hostile to and condemnatory of ascertained scientific truth. No one in authority would probably now venture to affirm in so many words that Catholics must regard as historical facts such matters as the legend of the Serpent and the Tree, that of the formation of Eve, Noah’s Ark, the destruction of Sodom, the transformation of Lot’s wife, the talking ass, or Jonah and his whale; nevertheless (not only from what is popularly taught, but from what has been put forth in the name of the Supreme Pontiff) it would seem as if Reuss, Welhausen, and Keunen had never written at all, instead of having transformed our whole conception of the Hexateuch. Liberal Catholics need demand no formal disavowals. What they do most strongly deprecate are needless declarations freshly made in the full light of modern science, physical, physiological, historical, or critical, yet futilely hostile thereto. The well-known Syllabus of Pius IX afforded a memorable instance of what is thus objected to.... It was so worded as to make plain men believe that their reasonable liberties had been condemned, and many tender consciences were greatly troubled thereby. A year or two back, Leo XIII, in a letter concerning the Bible, afforded a most amazing example of misleading ambiguity.... It is understood that for this letter he was not personally to blame, his will having been overborne by the influence of the Jesuits of the Civiltà Cattolica. This letter contains, to be sure, a certain recognition of modern science; but it broadly declares that the Bible contains no error.... English Catholics have been played with of late in the matter of a new Index in a singularly inept and absurd manner, owing to the fact that the players at Rome are so densely ignorant concerning the state of things in England.
“The old Index was never supposed to be binding on English Catholics and, indeed, its provisions were such that it was practically almost a dead letter on the Continent also.... The new Index is, however, formally declared to be applicable to all countries, and great has been the distress which through its publication arose in the minds of a multitude of timid and scrupulous believers.... Pressure was brought to bear upon Rome, which was forced at last to learn something of the condition of affairs in England, and finally supreme authority has had to draw in its horns and suffer it to be spread about in England that the new reformed Index does not apply here, and that in this happy country every condemned publication can be read, and any work on morals or religion published and circulated, without ecclesiastics having the power to prevent it.... Since the affair of the Index, however, a yet more monstrous act has been perpetrated. Any one who has taken any interest in Scripture knows that for many years past the text in the Epistle of St. John about ‘the three witnesses’ (the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in heaven) has been regarded as a spurious addition. An application was lately made to Rome to know whether the authenticity of this well-known text might safely be called in question. The reply was that it might neither be denied nor called in question. Thus authority, in this last act, has shown an utter contempt for historical and critical truth, and that it desires its spiritual subjects should be left to believe that an absolutely unauthentic passage is an inspired statement written ‘by the finger of God.’... We live in a critical period. Dogmatic statements require special care when, thanks to the labours of such men as Harnack and Weiszäcker, so much light has been thrown on the genesis and history of dogma and the earliest condition of the Christian Church. But the diffusion of any such knowledge is but little perilous if only authority will refrain from self-destructive affirmations.... The advance of physical science necessarily carries with it changes in religious belief, as astronomy and geology unquestionably show. But changes in moral science and consequent modifications in human sentiment produce changes of far greater moment.... It is then above all things necessary that ecclesiastical authority should help in the elevation of popular ethical ideals, instead of trying, as the Catholic Church has in many cases already done, to retain these at a lower stage of development.... The scientific teaching now current about the Old and the New Testament, the history of dogma and of the beginnings of the Church, must doubtless disturb the minds of many faithful Catholics now as future discoveries in the field of physiology will disturb the minds of persons who are to come after us. We are and we wish to remain in sympathy with the Church of centuries long gone; but surely we should also wish and strive to pave the way for the triumph of the Church in ages yet to come. We emphasise the importance of attention to past changes and the necessity of great consideration and accommodation on the part of authority at the present time and yet more in the future. We urge this because we are devoted to the cause of the Catholic Church; we urge this as humble followers of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, in the name of Him who was the first great teacher of ‘accommodation’ and who, as the great opponent of pharisaic narrowness, emphatically deserves the honourable title of the first ‘Liberal Catholic’ of the Universal Church of Christ.”
The criticism of “Romanus,” speaking on behalf of the Liberal Catholics, was promptly taken up by an “orthodox” Romanist, evidently a strong opponent of Liberal Catholicism, who is prepared to accept without question the authority and the policy of Pius and Leo in regard to the supervision of literature and the direction of the intellectual life of the Church. The reply of the defender of the papal policy appears in the Tablet (which may, I suppose, be considered as the official organ of the Church in England) in December, 1897. The following extracts will give the main conclusions of this upholder of papal authority.
“The article in the Contemporary Review which claims to represent the views of ‘Liberal Catholicism’ is not entitled to any serious attention on the part of educated Catholics. Its matter and its spirit are well known to them ad nauseam, and they easily recognise one and the other as a part of the stock-in-trade of certain writers who not unnaturally conceive that they can attack the Catholic Church more plausibly by affecting to stand within her pale, and while masquerading (anonymously, of course) under the name of Catholic. The only passage in the Contemporary article which is deserving of any present attention is that relating to the modification of the recent Constitution of the Index. In January last, the Holy See was pleased to simplify, and in many respects to modify, the provisions of the Index, and issued a Constitution to that effect. Like all legislation of a general kind, it was issued to the Church as a whole. The Holy See, following its most wise tradition, frames its general law upon the needs of the bulk or majority of its subjects, and makes such law, for the time being, the standard of the community, knowing that if its provisions, in whole or in part, should, owing to peculiar circumstances, become inapplicable to the minority or should press unduly upon them, their case can easily be met either by local modification, or by personal dispensation where they affect an individual or a class. A good deal of cheap rhetoric is often wasted upon the narrowness and intolerance of the authorities of the Index. We are concerned with the law itself and with the principles which underlie this law and with the reasons which justify it. The measure of discretion (or of indiscretion) which characterises the action of the authorities in the administration of the law and in its application to this or that book or opinion deserves separate consideration.... It may safely be asserted that not a little of the ordinary criticism of the regulations of the Index is due in many cases to insularity. Probably out of every hundred Englishmen or Americans who rail against the restrictions of the Index, not a tithe has any direct acquaintance with, or takes any due account of, the flood of bitterly anti-Christian literature, often infidel, immoral, and blasphemous, and almost always insidiously polemical, which is poured over Italy and the Continent generally, by the masonic and anti-clerical press. It is in great measure this degrading abuse of one of the noblest faculties of civilised society, and the need of duly protecting the minds of the masses that the provisions of the Index are specially designed to meet. It is simply a measure of Catholic sanitation. In fact, were a representative collection of such continental literature translated and put into the hands of the average English father, we conceive that he would promptly improvise himself into a domestic Congregation of the Index and take pains to see that all such vehicles of infection were rigidly excluded from his family.... That the Catholic Church, which is necessarily an authoritative and a teaching Church, should be equally solicitous about the members of her family, and that from her standpoint she should extend her solicitude, not only to manifest evils but to assaults upon the faith which she believes to be the logical sub-structure of morality, is a principle which assuredly need not excite our surprise. However much we may feel that, in times like our own, when our best triumphs promise to be gained by guiding, rather than by limiting human liberty, and when necessarily much must be left to the discretion of the conscientious, the practical application of the principle is a matter which calls for the exercise of that generous and tactful delicacy that the Catholic Church knows so well how to use in teaching her children.... No one who looks upon the face of Christendom to-day can fail to note that there exists a clearly marked difference between the whole set of social and political circumstances which obtain in the English-speaking lands and those which obtain in the various countries of the Continent. This difference applies particularly to the very circumstances which most affect the use and application of the provisions of the Index.... We maintain that in English-speaking countries there does not exist upon any large or popular scale such bitter and active propaganda against Christianity and Christian morality as are unhappily at work abroad, nor is there that widespread prevalence of aggressively anti-Christian and pornographic literature which the infidel and anti-clerical press pours forth like a pestilential sewer in certain continental countries. The Church has wisely taken into account the special character and circumstances of Catholics in the English-speaking countries, and the significance which as expressing the more modern development of social and political life they promise to possess in the future. For centuries, the provisions of the Index in their more rigid sense have not been practically applied to these countries, and to a very large measure these provisions have been left in abeyance with the perfect knowledge of the Supreme Authority.... The Constitution published by the Holy See, in January last, was naturally issued to the Church at large, and when it appeared in the Catholic press of England it necessarily elicited from both clergy and laity the question whether this new Constitution was or was not intended to supplant the status quo which had hitherto existed among us. The reply to the enquiry addressed to Rome by the Cardinal Archbishop and bishops of England, conceded the most ample powers for dispensation, so that, owing to the ‘special circumstances of the country,’ the bishops in England were fully authorised ‘to modify the rigour of the law by their prudence and counsel according as the case might demand.’ Rome’s reply was thus as ready and as liberal as could well be desired....
“No Catholic forgets or can ever allow himself to forget that the Index is at most an institution which has been called into existence by the practical prudence of the Holy See to safeguard and to hedge around with specific regulations the observance of a moral law that is as old as Christianity itself and that, even if the regulations of the Index were abolished to-morrow, would remain in all its force in the Catholic Church. If the faithful Catholic in the course of his reading finds by experience that a given book is of a kind to undermine his faith or to work injury to his morals, he knows that he is bound by the very fact to deal with it as he would with a proximate occasion of sin, and to cast it aside. Christianity by its very condition means discipline. In it the unbridled freedom of thinking, saying, reading, and doing what we like is exchanged for the higher and holier freedom of union with the mind and with the life of Christ. The moral law of the Church is everywhere and always with us and every good Christian carries about with him inside of his own conscience a Constitution of the Index....”
This article may, I judge, while now eight years old, fairly be accepted as an authoritative utterance on the part of the thoroughly orthodox Romanists of England, that is to say, of those who accept without question the decisions and the regulations from Rome. The writer in the Tablet declines, or, to speak more precisely, contemptuously refuses, to meet any of the specific criticisms of “Romanus” in regard to this or that text or to the relations of the Church with the conclusions of scientists. He bases his conclusions upon a general and implicit acceptance of the final authority of the Church in all matters and he apparently holds that only in such reverent acceptance and obedience can there be a religious sanity in this world or hope for the world to come.
4. The Present Methods of Roman Censorship.—The Papal Consistory may be considered as a direct successor or at least a continuation of the chancellery of the Roman Empire. When (in 328), the Emperor Constantine moved the court to Byzantium, he left the chancellery in Rome and the authority or organisation of this chancellery came to be associated with the authority of the Bishop of Rome.
The term Curia or Holy See is used to represent the Church organisation or final authority of the Church considered more particularly in its relations with foreign States or with outside bodies.
The Congregations date in their final organisation from Sixtus V (1585). The series now comprises eighteen. These Congregations might be compared in the nature and in the exercise of their functions to the standing committees of the United States Senate; excepting that their decisions do not have to be referred to any general body for action. These decisions are final unless disapproved by the pope. The pope retains for himself the official headship of the Congregation of the Index on the ground that the work of this Congregation has to do directly with matters of doctrine. The working body of the Congregation of the Index comprises ten to twelve members with votes, including always a group of cardinals. In addition to these voting members, there is a varying number of consultores (advisers) who are called in as experts in different divisions of knowledge, but who have no votes in the decisions arrived at. The Congregation which bears the name Propaganda is charged with the responsibility of receiving and sifting miscellaneous business, referring each division of such business to its appropriate Congregation. The Congregation of the Index has from the outset been conducted under the influence and under the practical control of the Order of the Dominicans. The secretary, who bears the name “commissarius” and who is always a Dominican, has the general responsibility for the selecting and the shaping of the business of the Congregation. It is to the commissarius that suggestions are submitted by ecclesiastics or others concerning books which, in their judgment, call for the consideration of the Congregation. The commissarius is also himself under obligation to submit titles of doubtful books of which he has personal knowledge. The exceptional influence of the Jesuits in statecraft and in personal relations with the popes and with other of the authorities of the Church is considered as constituting some measure of offset to the influence that the Dominicans have, in their control of the Index, been able to exert concerning the acceptance (or the reprobation) of literature presenting the special doctrines of the Jesuits. The method of thought and of reasoning of the Dominicans is, it is to be borne in mind, based upon the teachings of Thomas of Aquinas and of the Thomists. The Franciscans are described as the commemorators of the mystical spirit of Duns Scotus. The leadership in intellectual activity in the Church is said to rest to-day, as it has rested through the centuries, with the Jesuits. The great Order of the Benedictines and that of the Cistercians are still referred to as making some of the largest and most important contributions to literature that come from Catholic sources.
It is to be remembered that the bishop possesses in his own diocese a very large measure of independent authority, authority which may be considered as increasing in direct proportion to the distance of the diocese from Rome. This local authority is utilised in connection with literary censorship as for other matters affecting the action of believers. This censorship of the bishops is naturally of special importance when it has to do with books originating in languages other than Italian or Latin, as such books are less likely to be brought to the attention of the censorship authorities in Rome.
In regard to the literary policy of the Church to-day as expressed in the Index, the opinion of the Jesuit Father Hilgers is of interest. In reply to the enquiry, “What is the Index?” Hilgers presents (in the treatise before referred to) the following statement, the text of which I have somewhat condensed: “The Index of prohibited books does not contain or undertake to present the entire regulation or body of the enactments of the Church concerning the supervision of literature and the specification of prohibited books. This body of Church law is to be found in the general Decrees or Regulations (Decreta Generalia) of the Constitution, known as the Officiorum ac munerum. It is of course to be understood that the editions of the Index are controlled by the general prohibitions (that is to say, by the prohibitions which, in place of specifying individual works, express a general literary policy) and also by what may be called the law of nature.... It is not safe for a believer to say, ‘as this book is not found in the Index, I am at liberty to read it.’ It should be understood that the book in question or any similar work may fall under the prohibition of the general rule or may under the law of nature be classed as pernicious. It is undoubtedly the case that many books which are pernicious for faith or for morals are not to be found in the Index. It would of course be a physical impossibility to include in any current lists all of the books of bad character or of bad influence which each year are being brought before the public. The Index is to be considered as itself a portion of the general Church prohibitions. It is not even to be admitted that the most dangerous or pernicious have with certainty found their way into Indexes, either the earlier or those that are now in force. The books which are undeniably bad should so reveal themselves to the conscience of the believer and are in any case clearly indicated by the law of the Church. This is the answer to the criticism that has more than once been made that the Congregation of the Index has concerned itself with the trivial or petty things, leaving without consideration books which are of most serious moment, for instance works belonging to the emphatically bad group. Examples of such are—in literature: those of Carl Gutzkow and Conrad Ferdinand Meyer; in natural science, those of Haeckel and of Krause (Carus-sterne); in philosophy, the writings of Feuerbach and Büchner; in theology, the works of F. C. Baur and of Bruno Bauer, etc. Against names like these, the caution of specific condemnation in the Index ought not to be required by any intelligent reader. There are to-day so-called philosophers whose representative works can be recognised as dangerous by the reason of each intelligent person, and these works it has therefore not been thought necessary to place in the Index. The very fact that the total number of books appearing in the Index is so inconsiderable is to be accepted as evidence that there has been no attempt to make specific condemnation of the whole mass of pernicious literature.” According to the calculation of Hilgers, the Indexes of the last three hundred years contain an average of sixteen new titles only for each year; and these sixteen titles represent the total of the selections made from the literatures of all the countries of the world, principally of course of those of Europe.
The Index presents for us a collection of the utterances of the Church authorities concerning specific condemnations of individual books. It may be said to bear the same relation to the general censorship decrees as that borne, for instance, by a collection of the judgments of a criminal court to the provisions of criminal law. It is the business of the court to arrive at a judgment in each individual case and in each case to determine whether the law has been broken. The Index condemnations, like the court judgments, may be accepted as representative in the one case of the general policy or principles by which the Church is guided and in the other case of the principles and of the provisions of the law. In the Constitution Officiorum ac munerum, section I, chapter 10, is the instruction: “While it is the duty of all believers, and particularly of the educated Catholic, to bring to the attention of the authorities of the Curia or of the bishops, books believed to be dangerous, this responsibility rests more particularly upon the nuncios, the Apostolic delegates, and the rectors and associates of the higher schools.” The word denunciation has a serious sound and yet such a word may be applied as describing the duty of any magistrate acting under the law of the land. “The Index is not,” continues Hilgers, “and never has claimed to be, a systematic and comprehensive collection of the titles of each class of prohibited books. It is no more just on this ground, however, that the Index should be charged with lack of system, plan, or consistency than that the civil authority should be criticised because, under the actual working of the law, there may not be each year examples of the imposition of penalties for all the offences specified.... It is further to be borne in mind that the influence of any particular work is naturally not the same during different periods or under different conditions; a book which at the time when certain issues were pending might have exercised a seriously pernicious influence, could for later generations, under different conditions, be studied safely simply as an historical record. It is the purpose of the Index as of the Decreta Generalia to protect and defend the true Faith, sound morality, and wholesome conduct. The censorship prohibitions constitute one means by which those to whom has been confided the care of the flock of the faithful may be enabled to fulfil their responsibilities.”
“In case there may be question of the accusation of any person for heretical doctrine the examination of the matter or the control of the case is held not under the direction of the Congregation of the Index, but under that of the Roman Inquisition. The condemnation of the book does not in itself carry with it a condemnation of the individual.”[165]
The Reverend Spencer Jones, in his treatise England and the Holy See, printed in London, 1902, remarks that, in such cases, “when a teacher is silenced and his books have been placed upon the Index a large proportion of the public are apt to entertain pity for him, which is natural; but feel little concern for those on whose behalf the Church has interfered, which shows want of sympathy and contempt for the authorities, which is for the most part unjust; the assumption being that because they judge it right to stay the treatise, they therefore wish to stop the truth.”[166]
A further criticism has been made against the Index on the ground of the indignity caused to works of science and to productions of literature of thought in associating these under condemnation with vulgar erotic romances or with the passing pamphlet of the moment. The Catholic answer is very simple: the Church is responsible for the correction of error in whatsoever form such error may take. Such action in regard to an error, whether this be a thought or form of expression, does not of necessity imply that the writer is himself unworthy. The Church may properly honour and does honour a faithful believer and great thinker like Fénelon, and may at the same time, in its watchfulness over sound thought and precise expression, find it necessary to correct some single utterance of Fénelon. The true Faith has to do not only with understanding but with the preservation of the purity of the soul and of right feeling.
It may be at once admitted that the regulations of the Congregation of the Index do not claim for themselves an infallible authority concerning matters of doctrine. The book prohibitions, while approved by the pope, do not (unless with rare exceptions) emanate directly from him and do not, therefore, partake of the infallibility of his Office. The pope can of course, in the cases in which it seems to him right so to do, decide with his own infallible judgment that the doctrine of a book is heretical and such a decision must carry with it full weight. The general prohibitions of the Index are, however, to be considered as simply an expression or conclusion concerning dogma in the narrower sense of the word. Such prohibitions may be considered as coming from the ecclesiastical court before which the book in question has been under trial and through such judgment the book is either condemned or passed upon as not a subject for disapproval.[167]
Hilgers calls attention to the method of procedure under which the successive Indexes collected into their lists the titles of books that had been condemned (in certain cases many years before) in specific decrees. The Index authorities have, he says, been criticised for bringing into condemnation books having to do with controversial questions, years after these questions have been practically adjusted or were no longer vital matters. The answer is that the literature was considered at the proper time under a separate decree and the Index merely presents a summary of such decrees. The Index of Leo XIII makes clear in its record of condemnations of earlier date the immediate source for each condemnation; whether this took the form of a papal brief or bull or whether it was arrived at through the decision of one of the papal Congregations. The books which have been condemned under a separate Apostolic edict (brief or bull) comprise in all a hundred and forty titles and these have been printed in each Leonine Index with a cross. During the three centuries between 1600 and 1900, the Congregation of the Holy Office, that is to say, the Roman Inquisition, has issued in all nine hundred book prohibitions. These are entered in the Leonine lists with the words: Decr. S. Off. During the same period, the Congregation of Rites has prohibited in all but three books. The Congregation of Dispensations has issued two condemnation decrees. It is clear from the above reference that each Congregation has been charged with the supervision of the literature belonging to its own special subject-matter. The Congregation of the Index, however, is concerned with the books in every division of literature because its subject is the examination and determination of works classed as suspected. The entries for which the Congregation of the Index is responsible during the three centuries in question aggregate about three thousand. As before stated, the power rests with the pope to examine and to pass judgment upon any book without the intervention of any one of the Congregations.
The Leonine Index repeats but two prohibitions back of the date of 1600. The first, bearing date 1575, makes entry of the title of the Chronicon of Conrad of Lichtenau, and the second, under the date of 1580, the title of Il Salmista secondo la Bibbia, etc. During the above specified period, covering three centuries, the lists comprise some four thousand titles, but this number includes a hundred and eight authors whose entire writings (under the entry of Opera omnia) came under condemnation. If the works of these writers were added separately to the schedule, the titles would aggregate about five thousand. Of these titles, some fifteen hundred belong to the 17th century, twelve hundred to the 18th, and thirteen hundred to the 19th; while from the publications of the last decade of the 19th have been selected but one hundred and thirty-one titles. This last group includes, however, the Opera omnia of Zola. The writers of the 19th century who have been distinguished through the condemnation of their entire works comprise the following: Sue, 1852; Dumas (father and son), 1863; Sand (Dudévant), 1863; Balzac, 1864; Champfleury (Fleury-Husson), 1864; Feydeau, 1864; Murger, 1864; Soulié, 1864; Hume (David), 1827; Morado, 1821; Plancy, 1827; Proudhon, 1852; Spaventa, 1856; Vira, 1876; Ferrari, 1879; Zola, 1895.
The omission from the Leonine Index of a long list of names, which appeared in earlier Indexes connected with the term Opera omnia, is to be understood as giving permission to the faithful for the use of such books of these writers as do not appear under specific condemnation or as cannot at once be classed under the general prohibitions. All of the books of writers of this first class which do not antagonise either the true Faith or good morality are now free for Catholic readers. This exception would of course continue to rule out the writings of the leaders of the original Reformation, Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, and the rest, although the names of these writers do not find place in the Leonine lists. The Index of Benedict (who from the liberal character of his convictions and policy was sometimes spoken of as the free-thinking Pope) strengthened the prohibitions against some fifty authors. The names of these authors, which had previously been connected only with specific books, are entered in the Index of 1758 with Opera omnia. Hilgers emphasises the greater liberality of Leo XIII in recalling these authors from the Opera omnia classification and in leaving condemned only certain specific works. He gives as another example of the liberality of Leo the freeing from condemnation of the famous treatise by Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis. This had previously been condemned with a d.c. but the objectionable portions had never been specified and no corrected edition had ever been attempted. Another work of this class, previously condemned but now left free by Leo, is the Paradise Lost of Milton, and a third author whose condemnation has in like manner been cancelled is Leibnitz.
The Index of Leo concerns itself, further, with the correction of certain condemnations that had been made, under general decrees, of books having to do with questions that had finally been adjusted through some later utterances of the Church. In 1661, Alexander VII had condemned in a general decree all writings having to do with (either for question or for defence) the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. In 1854, this doctrine was accepted by the Church as a dogma and the decree of Alexander was thereby cancelled. The Index of Leo recalls the prohibition of the books previously condemned which had defended the doctrine.
The great number of Italian books which swell, in the Leonine Index, the list of modern publications, are very largely concerned with the issues, that have been fought over and that are not yet adjusted, which arose from the development of the Kingdom of Italy. The condemnation in 1871 of two essays by Lord Acton was due to the approval given by Acton to the doctrines of the group of Catholic reformers led by Döllinger. The comparatively small selection that has been made in this Index and in those that more immediately preceded it of works from the countries outside of Italy was due to the fact that the examiners of the Congregation have felt under responsibility to pass upon only those books which were directly brought to their attention.