That darned Catholic Church...

In my previous blog I wrote of a list of forbidden books first published by the Catholic Church in 1559 with the aim of protecting the faith and morals of Catholics. It was meant to save us from reading immoral books or works with theological errors or works that in any way posed a threat to the power of the Church. I did some research on this peculiar list and found interesting facts.

Scientific books were plentiful in those early days, books by Galileo, Kepler and Copernicus were judged to have errors in that these astronomers wrote falsely that the sun was the center of the solar system and not the earth as the Church incorrectly claimed.

The first Index banned all books by Martin Luther, Calvin and other protestant reformers. Translating books in other than Latin were banned. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin showed the Church's narrow mindedness as it was not condemned because it was available only in English and because English was a barbarian language and only Protestants spoke it and all Protestants were going to hell anyway. Even my sweet old Mom, God rest her soul, believed all Protestants went to hell or actually, only Catholics went to heaven. When Harriet's book was translated into Italian, Spanish and French it became dangerous, another of my Mom's favorite words. Harriet was perceived to be spreading Protestant poison.

The Roman Inquisition and Index of Forbidden Books did not represent the best chapters in Catholic history. Updates of the infamous index were added repeatedly until it's 20th edition in 1948 but was finally abolished in 1966 by Pope Paul VI, created originally by Pope Paul IV.