List of authors and works on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum

This is a list of authors and works listed on the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum". The "Index" was abolished on June 14th 1966 by Pope Paul VI. [Cambridge University on Index. [http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/galbooks.html] ]

A complete list of the authors and writings present in the subsequent editions of the index are listed in J. Martinez de Bujanda, Index Librorum Prohibitorum", 1600-1966", Geneva, 2002.

Some notable authors and intellectuals whose works are widely read today in leading universities worldwide and are now considered as the foundations of science were listed on the Index. E.g. Kepler's "New Astronomy" and "World Harmony" were quickly placed on the Index after their publication. [Project Galileo [http://galileo.rice.edu/chr/congregation.html] ] Other examples of noteworthy intellectuals and religious figures who were on the Index include Jean Paul Sartre, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal and Saint Faustina Kowalska.

ingle works listed

With some writers, only certain books were banned: Samuel Richardson "(Pamela)," Emanuel Swedenborg "(The Principia)," or Immanuel Kant "(Critique of Pure Reason)," for example. Alfred Rosenberg’s "Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts" (The Myth of the Twentieth Century) and his "An die Dunkelmänner unserer Zeit: eine Antwort auf die Angriffe gegen den "Mythus des 20. Jahrhundert" (Regarding The Dark Men of Our Time: an Answer to the Problems against the "Myth of the Twentieth Century"), were condemned by decrees of February 7, 1934 and of July 17, 1935 respectively. Ernst Bergmann's "Die deutsche Nationalkirche" (The German National Church) and his "Die natürliche Geistlehre" (Natural Spirit Teachings), by decrees of February 7 1934 and November 17, 1937.
*Dante Alighieri (only his Monarchia)
*Montaigne (Essais)
*Descartes (Méditations Métaphysiques et 6 autres livres, 1948)
*La Fontaine (Contes et Nouvelles)
*Pascal (Pensées)
*Montesquieu (Lettres Persanes, 1948)
*Voltaire (Lettres philosophiques; Histoire des croisades; Cantiques des Cantiques)
*Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Du Contrat Social; La Nouvelle Héloïse)
*Helvétius (De l'Esprit; De l'homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles et de son éducation)
*Casanova (Mémoires)
*Sade (Justine, Juliette)
*Madame de Staël (Corinne ou l'Italie)
*Stendhal (Le Rouge et le noir, 1948)
*Victor Hugo (Notre Dame de Paris; Les misérables jusqu'en 1959)
*Gustave Flaubert (Mme Bovary; Salammbô)
*Alexandre Dumas (divers romans)
*Pierre Larousse (Grand Dictionnaire Universel)

Authors' complete works listed

In a few cases, according to "The Book of Lists" by Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace and David Wallechinsky, "all" works of a particular writer were on the Index: Thomas Hobbes, Émile Zola, Jean-Paul Sartre. As for Benedict Spinoza, the Church put all of his posthumous works on the Index.
*Rabelaishttp://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/indexlibrorum.html]
*Denis Diderot (Encyclopédie)
*Balzac
*Emile Zola
*Maeterlinck
*Anatole France (prix Nobel en 1921, à l'Index en 1922)
*Andre Gide (prix Nobel, à l'Index en 1952)
*Gregorio Leti
*Jean Paul Sartre (Prix Nobel (refusé), à l'Index en 1959)

Other

Among the notable writers on the list were Buridan, Desiderius Erasmus, Edward Gibbon, Giordano Bruno, Laurence Sterne, Voltaire, Daniel Defoe, Nicolaus Copernicus, Honoré de Balzac, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nikos Kazantzakis, Descartes, Kant, Berkeley, Malebranche, Lamennais and Gioberti, as well as the Dutch sexologist Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde, author of the sex manual "The Perfect Marriage".
*Joseph Addison
*Francis Bacon
*Honoré de Balzac
*Simone de Beauvoir
*Cesare Beccaria
*Jeremy Bentham
*Henri Bergson
*George Berkeley
*Thomas Browne
*Giordano Bruno
*John Calvin
*Giacomo Casanova
*Auguste Comte
*Nicolaus Copernicus
*Jean le Rond d'Alembert
*Erasmus Darwin
*Daniel Defoe
*René Descartes
*Denis Diderot
*Alexandre Dumas, père
*Alexandre Dumas, fils
*Desiderius Erasmus
*Johannes Scotus Eriugena
*Gustave Flaubert
*Anatole France
*Frederick II of Prussia
*Galileo Galilei
*Edward Gibbon
*André Gide
*Vincenzo Gioberti
*Graham Greene
*Heinrich Heine
*Thomas Hobbes
*Victor Hugo
*David Hume
*Cornelius Jansen
*Immanuel Kant
*Adam F. Kollár ["On the Origins and Perpetual Use of the Legislative Powers of the Apostolic Kings of Hungary in Matters Ecclesiastical." Vienna, 1764.]
*Saint Mary Faustina Kowalska
*Nikos Kazantzakis
*Hughes Felicité Robert de Lamennais
*Pierre Larousse
*John Locke
*Martin Luther
*Niccolò Machiavelli
*Maurice Maeterlinck
*Maimonides
*Nicolas Malebranche
*Jules Michelet
*John Stuart Mill ["Principles of Political Economy" placed on Index in 1856; Seldes, G. 1934. "The Vatican - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow." London. p. 180.]
*John Milton
*Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
*Blaise Pascal
*François Rabelais
*Ernest Renan
*Samuel Richardson
*Jean-Jacques Rousseau
*George Sand
*Jean-Paul Sartre
*Baruch de Spinoza
*Laurence Sterne
*Emanuel Swedenborg
*Jonathan Swift
*Miguel de Unamuno
*Maria Valtorta
*Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde
*Voltaire
*Gerard Walschap
*Émile Zola
*Huldrych Zwingli
*Johannes Kepler

Reversals and exclusions

There have been cases of reversal with respect to some people whose works were on the Index. For instance, Mary Faustina Kowalska's work and her diary of her reported Divine Mercy visions of Jesus and Mary were initially on the Index. She died in obscurity, and only after her death did the sisters of her convent send her writings to the Vatican for its approval.

The current official position of the Vatican is that the version of Faustina's writings that reached Rome was incorrectly translated; the questionable material could not be corrected with the original Polish version owing to the difficulties in communication throughout World War II and the subsequent Communist Iron Curtain. Only much later, in the 1970s -- four decades after she had died -- had Karol Wojtyla, who was Archbishop over the area where Faustina had spent her last years, initiate a re-working of the translation. This version was accepted by Rome in 1976; two years later, Archbishop Wojtyla was elected Pope, becoming John Paul II.

Although officially the ban is now attributed to misunderstandings created by a faulty Italian translation of Kowalska's Diary, some sources state that in fact it stemmed from more serious theological issues. For instance, her claim that Jesus had promised a complete remission of sin for certain devotional acts that only the sacraments can offer was against the views of the conservatives at the Holy Office. [A Saint despite the vatican [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_37_38/ai_91210086] ] At the time her work was placed on the Index, the Secretary of the Holy Office was the highly conservative Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani.

As Pope, John Paul II beatified Faustina, then later Canonizing her on Easter 2000, the first saint proclaimed for the third millennium. Upon canonizing her, the Feast Day "Divine Mercy Sunday" proposed by Faustina was made obligatory for the entire Church. Though her writings were once banned, today Faustina's Vatican biography quotes samples of her reported conversations with Jesus Christ from her diary and Divine Mercy Sunday (based on her writings) is now celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. [Vatican Biography of Saint Faustina Kowalska http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20000430_faustina_en.html]

Not on the Index were Aristophanes, Juvenal, John Cleland, James Joyce and D. H. Lawrence. According to Wallace et al, this was because the primary criterion for banning the work was anticlericalism, blasphemy, heresy.

Some authors whose views are generally unacceptable to the Church (e.g. Charles Darwin, Karl Marx or Hitler) were never put on the "Index". [ [http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/features/article_1070798.php/Vatican_opens_up_secrets_of_Index_of_Forbidden_Books Vatican opens up secrets of Index of Forbidden Books] .] [American Magazine http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3998]

References

External links

* [http://www.beaconforfreedom.org/search/censored_publications/result.html?author=&cauthor=&title=&country=8052&language=&censored_year=&censortype=&published_year=&censorreason=&Search=Search Searchable database of "Index Librorum Prohibitorum"]
* [http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/ILP-1559.htm Facsimile of the 1559 index]
* [http://www.cvm.qc.ca/gconti/905/BABEL/Index%20Librorum%20Prohibitorum-1948.htm The complete list of banned books in 1948]
* [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/indexlibrorum.html List of famous authors in the index]