Spanish Inquisiton

The Liturgist · Jul 26, 2025

Valletta said:
Realize that the Catholic Church not only chose the 73 books of the Bible in the late 300s, but preserved, translated, and preached the Word of God over all of these centuries.

Also the Roman Catholic Church was not alone in choosing those 72 books - the Greek Orthodox church chose basically the same canon, with a few additions such as Psalm 151, as did the Slavonic churches and the Copts, with some variations. The Ethiopians, in full communion with the Copts, used additional books, for an 81 book canon. So while the early church never attained full consensus on the subject of the canon, and there were also various short-lived canons, such as the Old Testament Canon promulgated by St. Athanasius in the same encyclical that introduced the 27 book New Testament canon, which did not become an ecumenical standard*, however, despite all of this diversity as far as I can tell the Protestant canon of 66 books was never accepted. For example, that of St. Athanasius had a protocanon of only 22 Old Testament books, which excluded Esther but included Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah and presumably the longer version of Daniel, but also had a Deuterocanon with Wisdom, Sirach, Tobith, Esther, and Judith, along Anglican lines as a something to be read but not fully canonical, and then also allowed the Teaching of the Apostles (most likely referring to the Didache or Didascalia; perhaps the latter, because the Ethiopians make use of it, but the two are similar) and the Shepherd of Hermas, important Patristic texts, “appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness.”

Like with the Gelasian Canon, everything else was regarded as apocrypha and the invention of heretics, as was fairly common in antiquity, since there were a great number of fabricated or corrupted writings (for example, the Gospel According to Thomas, so popular among modern liberal scholars, because of its similarity to the Synoptic Gospels, but even if we accept that this book was perhaps a Coptic translation of a Syriac book used by St. Thomas (who, being the evangelist of Mesopotamia and India, would not have spoken Coptic; indeed, the Scriptures and Liturgy were not completely translated into Coptic unitl the Patriarchate of St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Egyptian and Ethiopian churches in the Fifth Century, for which reason the ancient Divine Liturgy of Alexandria, which we find variants of in the Strasbourg Papyrus, the Euchologion of St. Sarapion of Thmuis, and in the Greek Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, is known as the Divine Liturgy of St. Cyril among the Copts, whether Orthodox, Catholic or members of the very small number of Protestant churches)*.

* There was an attempted Evangelical Protestant / Charismatic takeover of the Coptic Orthodox church in the past 20 years, exploiting extra-diocesan areas which proliferated under the Patriarchate of Shenouda III, memory eternal, which had General Bishops but only the Bishop of Alexandria having actual diocesan activity, under his successor Tawadros (Theodore) II, these areas have been made dioceses, with local bishops who not only are able to ordain clergy, but have the authority to depose them if they depart from the Orthodox faith. This was not suppressed with any violence, but in a polite manner, and indeed few clergy were deposed, but the praise and worship bands were removed, the iconostases that had been removed from churches such as the cathedral in the impoverished Cairo suburb of Muqattam were reinstalled by the firery Bishop Abanoub, named for the child martyr St. Abanoub, who received his crown during the Diocletian Persecutions, venerated by all ancient churches whether Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox; I would love to see increased devotion to St. Abanoub in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, as there has lately been increased devotion to St. Moses the Black, an inspiration to the Ethiopians and a hero to the Copts, a man of evil, a highwayman, who moved by the Holy Spirit, repented from his career of robbery, and was washed clean in Holy Baptism, and became a monk, eventually being ordained a hieromonk (monastic presbyter), and who founded a monastery, rejecting violence completely, and was himself martyred, thus being an example of what St. Paul described likened to putting to death our old selves so as to put on Christ. St. Abanoub on the other hand was a young boy, 12 years old, innocent and devoted to Christ our True God, whose faith caused God to protect him from all suffering, and numerous attempts to martyr him in sadistic ways failed to even inflict any pain upon him, and what is more, St. Abanoub is among those Orthodox and Catholic saints who like the angels are known to put in appearances among the living (along with the likes of St. Nektarios of Pentapolis and our glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary).

By the way @Valletta have you heard of the Apparition of our Lady of Zeitoun, above the Coptic church of St. Mary? This happened in the late 1960s and the investigation of it was conducted by the Coptic Orthodox Church, with the support of the Vatican, for Catholics and Orthodox were united in seeing the Mother of God, and many Muslims were converted. Indeed, even the Egyptian President Gamal Nasser claimed to have seen the Blessed Virgin Mary, although if he converted to Christianity as a result, he kept it a secret (but perhaps having seen Our Lady, he was persuaded not to persecute Christians in order to win over support from more fanatical elements, although the Pan-Arabic movement of that era, of which he was a leading figure, was not known for the persecution of Christians which followed the Arab Spring in 2011, but it was a strong proponent of Arabization, and thus the status of the Copts, Maronites (who regard themselves to be of Phoenician ethnicity, and it is possible that this, rather than a theological dispute, is what caused their separation from the Syriac Orthodox, although I regard this as unlikely, particularly since some Maronites have joined the Antiochian Orthodox Church which is associated most heavily with the Rum (Byzantine Greeks) ethnic group, like the Melkite Greek Catholics), Aramaeans, Assyrian, Latin and Byzantine (Antiochian/Melkite Hagiopolitan, and Greeks) Christians as distinct ethnic groups in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan was not encouraged, nor the preservation of the endangered Aramaic dialects, which only became more endangered that time, nor the contemporary revival of the Coptic language.

The Liturgist · Jul 26, 2025

Valletta said:
In Europe, Latin eventually surpassed Greek as the common, or "vulgar," language of the people, thus the Latin "Vulgate." As century after century passed Latin morphed into languages like Italian and French and Spanish, hence the need by the Catholic Church for more translations.

Indeed, even in the second century Latin became predominant among the Christians of Rome, so St. Victor, the Bishop of Rome, translated the liturgy and the Bible into Latin - this being the Vetus Latina, which while officially replaced by the Vulgate, which was designed to be easier for larger numbers of Latin speakers to read, among other objectives, was not always as elegant, survives in the form of liturgical phrases such as “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” familiar not just to Catholics but to Lutherans who appreciate the Mass in B Minor and other compositions in Latin and German by Bach and Schubert, and to any Protestant who has sung the hymn “Angels We Have Heard on High,” at Christmas, at least before hymns were replaced in so many churches by obnoxious rock music and praise and worship music. I have loved singing Angels We Have Heard on High since I was a small boy, because it is beautiful, and the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is particularly fun to sing.

The Liturgist · Jul 26, 2025

Valletta said:
The Protestant King James Bible, based much upon Catholic work, was published in 1611.

Most Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Charisamatics and Restorationists are unaware of the fact that a full and complete KJV will include most of the same books as a “Catholic Bible” and some material that a Roman Catholic Bible would not have, due to differences in organization between them (actually more books, because rather than being included in Daniel, Bel and the Dragon and Susanna and other elements have been made separate books.

They are also usually unaware that the KJV was brought about to replace the Geneva Bible, which had been proscribed by the RCC and was unwelcome in the Church of England because it had specifically Calvinist in-line comments, which were inserted into the actual text, not as footnotes, but rather, in between paragraphs, so a newly literate child or person of the emerging middle class of shopkeepers and merchants might not have realized these comments were not Scripture but were instead interpretations based not on generic Protestant principles but on specifically the variety of Calvinism practiced in Geneva and later associated with the early Presbyterian Church of Scotland. King James did not want the Church of Scotland and the Church of England to be at odds with each other, as that would have made his role as King untenable, so the King James Bible was brought about to restore unity, and removed the doctrinal comments, which were offesive to Anglicans as well as those Catholics who participated in the Elizabethan settlement, such as the composers Byrd and Tallis, who worshipped in small private and technically illegal chapels which were not raided only because Queen Elizabeth liked their music, which they composed for the Church of England, which beautified the services in the Chapel Royal and a few cathedrals and royal peculiars, but not in the average parishes which used a very drab psalter, and enabled them to survive and compose the beautiful Latin music they contributed to the Roman church (which would also have been of use by Lutherans, who wisely maintained both Latin and vernacular liturgies).

The Anglicans already had the Bishop’s Bible, but the Presbyterians refused it, I believe the title must have been unacceptable, since bishops equalled “shameless popery” in their mind (just as Presbyterianism was ”shameless popery” to the Puritans and Baptists in that dark era of religious intolerance at the level of national governments and segments of the nobility, but in which the people of the lower classes were given little say in what church they could worship in, which helped promote migration to the Colonies - Catholics to Maryland and Georgia, Anglicans to Virginia and later New York (also home to Dutch Calvinists from the period of New Amsterdam, and to Baptists on Long Island), Lutherans to New Sweden (New Jersey), Puritans to Massachussets and Connecticut and Providence, Moravians to the Southern states, Quakers to Pennsylvania, Waldensians to North Carolina, and Methodists to all of the above. Later the Orthodox and Ruthenian Catholics would come, after the formation of the US, settling chiefly in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, with the town of Wilkes-Barre being nicknamed Fourth Rome, and later to California - to the Russian River and San Francisco, and to Eugene, Oregon, and to Alaska (and not just Russian Orthodox but Doukhobors, Old Believers and Molokans), and Ukrainians, both Orthodox and Catholics, settling en masse in the Praire Provinces of Canada and the Great Plains of the Upper Midwest, in the agricultural lands of North Dakota, Saskatchewan, Montana, Calgary, Manitoba, Iowa and Alberta.

And Chicago and California became bastions for the persecuted Assyrian Church of the East, later joined by other states like Arizona, and the Syriac Orthodox and Malankara Orthodox in New York and New Jersey and in other major metropolitan areas, with Copts initially being concentrated in Los Angeles and the Southern United States, and Ethiopians in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Carribean and the Pacific Northwest.

Valletta · Jul 26, 2025

The Liturgist said:
Also the Roman Catholic Church was not alone in choosing those 72 books - the Greek Orthodox church chose basically the same canon, with a few additions such as Psalm 151, as did the Slavonic churches and the Copts, with some variations. The Ethiopians, in full communion with the Copts, used additional books, for an 81 book canon. So while the early church never attained full consensus on the subject of the canon, and there were also various short-lived canons, such as the Old Testament Canon promulgated by St. Athanasius in the same encyclical that introduced the 27 book New Testament canon, which did not become an ecumenical standard*, however, despite all of this diversity as far as I can tell the Protestant canon of 66 books was never accepted. For example, that of St. Athanasius had a protocanon of only 22 Old Testament books, which excluded Esther but included Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah and presumably the longer version of Daniel, but also had a Deuterocanon with Wisdom, Sirach, Tobith, Esther, and Judith, along Anglican lines as a something to be read but not fully canonical, and then also allowed the Teaching of the Apostles (most likely referring to the Didache or Didascalia; perhaps the latter, because the Ethiopians make use of it, but the two are similar) and the Shepherd of Hermas, important Patristic texts, “appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness.”

Like with the Gelasian Canon, everything else was regarded as apocrypha and the invention of heretics, as was fairly common in antiquity, since there were a great number of fabricated or corrupted writings (for example, the Gospel According to Thomas, so popular among modern liberal scholars, because of its similarity to the Synoptic Gospels, but even if we accept that this book was perhaps a Coptic translation of a Syriac book used by St. Thomas (who, being the evangelist of Mesopotamia and India, would not have spoken Coptic; indeed, the Scriptures and Liturgy were not completely translated into Coptic unitl the Patriarchate of St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Egyptian and Ethiopian churches in the Fifth Century, for which reason the ancient Divine Liturgy of Alexandria, which we find variants of in the Strasbourg Papyrus, the Euchologion of St. Sarapion of Thmuis, and in the Greek Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, is known as the Divine Liturgy of St. Cyril among the Copts, whether Orthodox, Catholic or members of the very small number of Protestant churches)*.

* There was an attempted Evangelical Protestant / Charismatic takeover of the Coptic Orthodox church in the past 20 years, exploiting extra-diocesan areas which proliferated under the Patriarchate of Shenouda III, memory eternal, which had General Bishops but only the Bishop of Alexandria having actual diocesan activity, under his successor Tawadros (Theodore) II, these areas have been made dioceses, with local bishops who not only are able to ordain clergy, but have the authority to depose them if they depart from the Orthodox faith. This was not suppressed with any violence, but in a polite manner, and indeed few clergy were deposed, but the praise and worship bands were removed, the iconostases that had been removed from churches such as the cathedral in the impoverished Cairo suburb of Muqattam were reinstalled by the firery Bishop Abanoub, named for the child martyr St. Abanoub, who received his crown during the Diocletian Persecutions, venerated by all ancient churches whether Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox; I would love to see increased devotion to St. Abanoub in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, as there has lately been increased devotion to St. Moses the Black, an inspiration to the Ethiopians and a hero to the Copts, a man of evil, a highwayman, who moved by the Holy Spirit, repented from his career of robbery, and was washed clean in Holy Baptism, and became a monk, eventually being ordained a hieromonk (monastic presbyter), and who founded a monastery, rejecting violence completely, and was himself martyred, thus being an example of what St. Paul described likened to putting to death our old selves so as to put on Christ. St. Abanoub on the other hand was a young boy, 12 years old, innocent and devoted to Christ our True God, whose faith caused God to protect him from all suffering, and numerous attempts to martyr him in sadistic ways failed to even inflict any pain upon him, and what is more, St. Abanoub is among those Orthodox and Catholic saints who like the angels are known to put in appearances among the living (along with the likes of St. Nektarios of Pentapolis and our glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary).

By the way @Valletta have you heard of the Apparition of our Lady of Zeitoun, above the Coptic church of St. Mary? This happened in the late 1960s and the investigation of it was conducted by the Coptic Orthodox Church, with the support of the Vatican, for Catholics and Orthodox were united in seeing the Mother of God, and many Muslims were converted. Indeed, even the Egyptian President Gamal Nasser claimed to have seen the Blessed Virgin Mary, although if he converted to Christianity as a result, he kept it a secret (but perhaps having seen Our Lady, he was persuaded not to persecute Christians in order to win over support from more fanatical elements, although the Pan-Arabic movement of that era, of which he was a leading figure, was not known for the persecution of Christians which followed the Arab Spring in 2011, but it was a strong proponent of Arabization, and thus the status of the Copts, Maronites (who regard themselves to be of Phoenician ethnicity, and it is possible that this, rather than a theological dispute, is what caused their separation from the Syriac Orthodox, although I regard this as unlikely, particularly since some Maronites have joined the Antiochian Orthodox Church which is associated most heavily with the Rum (Byzantine Greeks) ethnic group, like the Melkite Greek Catholics), Aramaeans, Assyrian, Latin and Byzantine (Antiochian/Melkite Hagiopolitan, and Greeks) Christians as distinct ethnic groups in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan was not encouraged, nor the preservation of the endangered Aramaic dialects, which only became more endangered that time, nor the contemporary revival of the Coptic language.

I don't recall hearing about the Apparition of our Lady of Zeitoun. I will have to read more about it. I have been much affected by apparitions at Lourdes over my life, I the reading of Song of Bernadette (I like the movie too) stuck with me through my pagan years.

Valletta · Jul 26, 2025

The Liturgist said:
Indeed, even in the second century Latin became predominant among the Christians of Rome, so St. Victor, the Bishop of Rome, translated the liturgy and the Bible into Latin - this being the Vetus Latina, which while officially replaced by the Vulgate, which was designed to be easier for larger numbers of Latin speakers to read, among other objectives, was not always as elegant, survives in the form of liturgical phrases such as “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” familiar not just to Catholics but to Lutherans who appreciate the Mass in B Minor and other compositions in Latin and German by Bach and Schubert, and to any Protestant who has sung the hymn “Angels We Have Heard on High,” at Christmas, at least before hymns were replaced in so many churches by obnoxious rock music and praise and worship music. I have loved singing Angels We Have Heard on High since I was a small boy, because it is beautiful, and the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is particularly fun to sing.

My best memories of my own singing comes from singing "Angels we have hear on High" with my granddaughters.

Amo2 · Jul 27, 2025

Valletta said:
There are all kinds of anti-Catholic books and websites spreading false and hateful information, so that is not news. Today you just don't see it vice versa.

I research, and so do many of my friends and fellow Christians here on these forums. I have learned so much from them, and the claim that the Catholics Church wants to keep the truth about the Bible from the laity is, sadly, one of the many false claims, repeated through the centuries. It has been refuted time and time again, and I am well versed on the subject and have posted before. When I say I research that means I often will read a source that someone has quoted from. So just minutes before your post I had gone out on the Internet and found and read at least the beginning of one of the texts you had quoted from. It was anything but a scholarly work, I say this because it started out with a negative unsupported assumption against Catholics. That is, such books typically start from a claim that here is the real motive of the Catholic Church without providing any documentation to support the assumption. And so often these books are not properly footnoted, it would be nice to know the actual place and date and name of an individual that allegedly made a statement. I hope you will take up the recommendation from @The Liturgist to examine The Cambridge History of Christianity (volumes 5 through 7), Always reading books that support our own positions is not the way to progress in knowledge.

As per-usual, I guess we have nothing but your word alone regarding the truth or authenticity of your above statement condemning the work of others. No quote from them regarding what you speak of, to be examined by those who you suppose apparently should just trust you as an authentic authority over and above a great many historians of the past and present. Sorry, I will not do that. Bring forth the materials you are referring to, and present your case against their authenticity, that all may examine for themselves your accusations and their reasons. Whether they be facts or bias. I have been researching Christian history for at least 45 years now. I therefore know and understand that there are a very great number of books and histories which contradict the claims being set forth on these boards. There has always been a major difference between Roman Catholic influenced or authored histories, and Protestant, or Rationalist, or Secular Humanist, or Atheistic if you will, influenced or authored histories. I am simply sharing several of the less Roman Catholic influenced histories which contest many of their seemingly censored or biased accounts of such.

Since it is the habit of those I am contesting with to attack the authenticity or integrity of all the sources I share which they do not agree with, I think it only fair at this point, that I now begin to introduce more historical testimonies regarding Roman Catholic interference, censorship, and or revision of mostly negative histories they do not care for any to know about. Apart from these actions regarding only the scriptures.

Apart from the sources I share on these boards, it does one no good to tell me the Catholic church does not or has not dissuaded many of its members from reading the bible and or does not and has not attempted to censor histories which are unfavorable to their institutions. As I have personally experience with both of these issues. Concerning testimony from members of my own family who were Catholics regarding their priests advising them not to read the scriptures, but to ask them if they had any questions regarding them. And my own experience with censorship of certain history books regarding the crusades and inquisitions in a very large public library, which I was refused access to, for a period of over 2 years every time I requested them. Though these very books were in fact registered and even on a list of books which were not supposed to be allowed to be checked out. I was told that the books were checked out and or unavailable every time I asked of them. When I asked why books that were not allowed to be checked out were never there, the clerk simply smiled and shrugged his shoulders. It was not until years later that I read testimony to the effect that this was an intentional habit of some Roman Catholics regarding the churches teachings and stance upon censorship.

I wonder if you have heeded your own advice about reading books that do not support your own positions. If you have done this, I think there is of course great opportunity for you to share which books you have read which contradict your own views, and address the problems and or inaccuracies here. This would course help prove your points, better than just asking everyone to take your word of everything.

The following historical account quoted below, gave me an explanation at least, of what I had experienced at a very large public library for about 2 1/2 years. The plots alleged and or referenced below represent only a small part of that addressed in the chapter under examination. More of which may be quoted in later posts. Or the entire book and or chapter may be viewed at the following link.

https://media.sabda.org/alkitab-8/LIBRARY/EDN_FCFA.PDF

FACTS OF FAITH
By Christian Edwardson
Chapter - THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY

........................................................

MAKING AMERICA CATHOLIC

THE Roman hierarchy knew that the older Protestants, who had read about the persecutions of the Dark Ages, and who knew some of the inside workings of the papal church, would never become Catholics. Rome’s hope lay in capturing the younger generation. If the Papacy could cover up those dark pages of its history, when it waded in the blood of martyrs, and could appear in the beautiful modern dress of a real champion for liberty, as a lover of science, art, and education, it would appeal to the American youth, and the battle would be won. .........................................

CAPTURING THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES

At the before-mentioned Catholic Congress plans were also laid for making the public libraries agencies in their propaganda. Dr. McGinnis says:

“Another force, second only to the school and the press in shaping the thoughts of the nation, is the public library system of the United States .... I ask why, in the name of the God of truth, is the great Catholic Church excluded from the shelves of the public libraries of the United States?... Create a strong, legitimate demand for Catholic literature, and the public libraries will meet the demand.”- Id., pp.422,423.

But how did that Congress propose to “create” this strong “demand” for Catholic books? Here is their scheme: They will supply their people with lists of books to be asked for at the libraries, and when several hundred or thousand people have called for the same books, it will create a demand.

“The demand for such literature must be brought to the public libraries. We wish to emphasize the fact that the demand must be made in good faith-the books are called for at the library because the man wants to read them. The International Catholic Truth Society will supply general and special lists of books, and the Spiritual Director... will... designate appropriate works for individual members. From this widespread bona fide demand for Catholic works at public libraries three results will follow. [It will help the members.] Their work will be instrumental in placing these books within the reach of the great non-Catholic American public, who will thus have some opportunity to find out what the Church’s doctrines and practices really are, and finally the increased circulation of such literature will be a well-deserved and much- needed stimulus to Catholic writers.”-Id., p. 424. See also “Catholic Digest,” March, 1937, pp. 126, 127, and “America,” September 13, 1913, pp. 547, 548.

Mr. Michael J. F. McCarty, of England, gives us some interesting facts regarding a similar work done by Jesuits in England. He says that they suppress books of Protestant authors, and bring to the front those of Catholics, and as a result of this systematic work, he says:

“Many Protestant authors are forced to speak favorably and kindly of Romanism .... The publication of books containing friendly allusibn to Protestant Christianity has almost ceased in England, [while the other kind of books] floods the country.”-”The Jesuits and the British Press,” p. 52. Edinburgh and London: 1910.

But, in addition to this, the Jesuits always have a man, either a priest or a layman, on the committee of almost every public library in Great Britain.

“The Jesuits’ man comes provided with two lists, a black list, which includes every well-known book, ancient and modern, adverse to Romanism; and a white list of new books especially [avorable to Romanism which he submits beforehand to the librarian, and eventually succeeds in getting placed in the library.”-Pp. 50, 51.

It is quite evident from our investigation of the facts that the Jesuits are the same in America as in England. Besides this, the few remaining books from the days when it was not so unpopular to state the unvarnished facts about medieval history have been diminishing in number by being worn out or purposely destroyed.

Amo2 · Jul 27, 2025

A little more from -

FACTS OF FAITH
By Christian Edwardson
Chapter - THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY

........................................................

MAKING AMERICA CATHOLIC

which may be viewed at -

https://media.sabda.org/alkitab-8/LIBRARY/EDN_FCFA.PDF

CENSORSHIP OF BOOKS

Those who write histories today have more source matter on ancient history, but less on medieval, than historians had four hundred years ago; for after the Reformation had fully aroused the papal church to action, her emissaries, especially the vigilant Jesuits, searched out and destroyed every evidence that was damaging to her. When Bishop Gilbert Burnet, D. D., prepared to write his “History of the English Reformation,” he became surprised, while searching among court records and public registers, to find so much missing, till he finally discovered the cause. He says:

“In the search I made of the Rolls and other offices, I wondered much to miss several commissions, patents, and other writings, which by clear evidence I knew were granted, and yet none of them appeared on record.

“But as I continued down my search to the fourth year of Queen Mary, I found in the twelfth roll of that year, a commission which cleared all my former doubts, and by which I saw what was become of the things I had so anxiously searched after. We have heard of the expurgation of books practiced in the Church of Rome; but it might have been imagined that public registers and records would have been safe; yet lest these should have been afterwards confessors, it was resolved they should then be martyrs; for on the 29th of December, in the fourth year of her reign, a commission was issued out under the great seal to Bonner, Bishop of London, Cole, Dean of St. Paul’s, and Martine, a doctor of the civil law, [which commanded the destruction of] divers compts, books, scrolls, instruments ....

“When I saw this, I soon knew which way so many writings had gone”-”History of the Reformation of the Church of England,’’ 2- vol. ed., Vol. I, Preface, p. xiii. London: 1880.

Let no one, therefore, say that statements in older histories are not true because we cannot now find sources to prove them.

The reader may not know that back of all this activity stands the Roman Curia, one department of which is the Sacred Congregation of the Index, which meets at Rome on stated days to decide what books are forbidden, and to make lists of them, called “The Index of Prohibited Books.”* The writer has examined two editions of this “Index,” one early edition, and their latest one of 1930 by Pope Plus XI. Some books are permanently forbidden, while others are forbidden until certain corrections are made in them, which explains the revisions of our schoolbooks, for the “Index” says:

“Can. 1396. Books condemned by the Holy See are prohibited all over the world and in whatever language into which they may have been translated.

“Can. 1397, Sec. 1. It is the duty of all the faithful, particularly of clerics, or those holding high positions and noted for their learning, to denounce any book, they may consider dangerous, to the local Ordinaries, or to the Holy See ....

“Sec. 3. Those to whom such denunciations are made are bound in conscience not to reveal the names of the accusers.

“Sec. 4. Local Ordinaries, either directly themselves, or through the agency of capable priests, are in duty bound to keep a close watch on the books that are published, or sold, within their territory ....

“Can. 1398, Sec. 1. The condemnation of a book entails the prohibition, without especial permission, either to publish, to read, to keep, to sell, to translate it, or in any way to pass it on to others.

“Sec. 2. A book which has been prohibited in any way may not be republished, unless, after the necessary corrections have been made.”-”Index,” of 1930, pp. xvi, xvii. Vatican Polyglot Press.

The Catholic Encyclopedia has this to say about the “Censorship of Books”: “In general, censorship of books is a supervision of the press in order to prevent any abuse of it.

“The reverse of censorship is freedom of the press.”- Vol. III, p. 519.

This “supervision of the press” extends also to articles written in magazines and newspapers, and among the special organizations working in this field is the International Catholic Truth Society, and the Catholic International Associated Press. Reporting the Louisville federation convention of the latter, Michael Kenny, S. J., in America (a Jesuit weekly) for August 31, 1912, says of their Catholic Press Bureau:

“We have it in our power to compel our papers, the thinking machines of the people, to tell the truth and refrain from transmitting slanders on Catholic matters. We can prevent the wells at which the people drink from being poisoned. We can, following the lead of the Austrian Catholic Congress, establish a Catholic International Associated Press, and to accomplish this object every Catholic of the right spirit, reading in the daily papers calumnies of our religion and the most brazen justification of the robber bands who drive our religious from their homes and confiscate their property, should be willing to contribute a tithe of his possessions. All this and more can be accomplished by federated action .... Marching shoulder-to shoulder with the spirit of soldiers on the battlefield at the call of the Church, we can successfully combat the organizations of her enemies and make this an era of Catholic manhood.”-”America,” August 31, 19I2, p. 486, article by M. Kenny, S. J.

As a result of this organized effort no newspapers in the United States will accept any news that reflects unfavorably on the Catholic Church or its propaganda in this country, while news unfavorable to Protestants is printed.

boughtwithaprice · Jul 27, 2025

Amo2 said:
The Catholic Church you belong to, did not even exist in the 300s. The church at that time, wished to get the word of God out to as many as possible, in an understood language. Which was the purpose of Jerome's vulgate addition if I remember correctly. Where did you copy and paste the above information from please.

Don’t understand your question as the Catholic Church has always wanted to get the word of God out to as many people as possible

Statements to the contrary are misleading and false

If one actually reads and researches the history instead of listening to propaganda surrounding it, the Church is vindicated every time

boughtwithaprice · Jul 27, 2025

Amo2 said:
A little more from -

FACTS OF FAITH
By Christian Edwardson
Chapter - THE UNITED STATES IN PROPHECY

........................................................

MAKING AMERICA CATHOLIC

which may be viewed at -

https://media.sabda.org/alkitab-8/LIBRARY/EDN_FCFA.PDF

Your point being?

Let’s just say a sect formed that demanded a great many people use only the New World Translation of the Bible in your congregation

If you Church had the power, would you want it propagated or suppressed?

Just because something was censored does not make it true

prodromos · Jul 27, 2025

Amo2 said:
I have been researching Christian history for at least 45 years now.

And yet you know next to nothing about the Orthodox Church.

The Liturgist · Jul 27, 2025

Amo2 said:
I have been researching Christian history for at least 45 years now.

The problem is the materials you have used for your research consisted of anti-Roman Catholic polemics, rather than peer-reviewed material such as the many books I have advised you to consult.

Also, in those 45 years, did you read any books about the persecuted Christians of the East, such as the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrians? Because you keep referring to events that mainly concerned the Orthodox in an anti-Roman Catholic polemical style.

Do you understand we are neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, but have been persecuted by both? Our churches were never under the control of the Pope of Rome. Thus when it comes to issues like the Spanish Inquisition, we who were also victims of related persecution (see St. Peter the Aleut, a 15 year old Aleutian Orthodox boy who like the other Aleutians and many Native Alaskans was evangelized was evangelized by the Russian Orthodox Church starting with the mission of St. Herman in the 17th century) who on a routine fishing trip that took him down the West Coast, had the misfortune of encountering the Mission Indians, and being arrested by the Spanish authorities and executed as a heretic) have no vested interest in downplaying the severity of the Inquisition.

But we do have an interest in the Truth, our Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Logos (Reason, Logic, Word) and the numbers you are claiming are inaccurate and unreasonable (alogoi).

Which is not to say the people who wrote them down were intentionally lying. In the case of Ellen G. White, she was regarded as a prophet, but I’m not sure if she was aware of the existence of the Orthodox, and her anti-Catholic polemics set the tone for subsequent Adventist polemics, as well as conspiracy theories about the Roman church plotting to ban worship on Saturday in the US, when in recent years Blue Laws protecting Sunday have unfortunately been falling by the wayside, and public schools increasingly schedule youth sports practice for Sunday mornings, which excludes many devout Christian youth from these activities.

Valletta · Jul 30, 2025

Amo2 said:
As per-usual, I guess we have nothing but your word alone regarding the truth or authenticity of your above statement condemning the work of others.

Let's take the first sentence of your first example from post #298.

Amo2 said:
"FORGING NEW WEAPONS

The Roman church had discovered that the root of her troubles lay in the reading of the Bible by the laity, and had opposed it with all the power at her command, But she finally realized that her open war on the Scriptures had aroused suspicion that her life and doctrines were out of harmony with God’s word, and could not endure the light of an open Bible."

Who specifically in the Catholic Church came to such an alleged discovery? When? What documentation supports this allegation? I see no footnote. If the author has no documentation, where did the author get the idea? How does the author reconcile this serious claim with the previous numerous Catholic translations of Biblical text into various common languages of the people? How does the author reconcile the numerous Catholics from monasteries who memorized long portions of the Bible and went out and spread the Gospel to the people? Realize that before the printing press few people were literate, and starting with Catholic Gutenberg printing his first book--the Bible, huge numbers of Bibles were printed for the people. And before the printing press Bibles were extremely expensive, so it would have been a rare exception for a layman to own a Bible. As has been explained, the Catholic Church is and has been against people altering God's Word, or putting their own personal anti-Catholic teachings within the bindings of a Bible, much as I'm sure Protestants would not welcome anti-Protestant statements within their Bibles. This is far different than banning people from reading the Bible because the Church could not "could not endure the light of an open Bible." Let's see what documentation you present.

boughtwithaprice · Jul 30, 2025

prodromos said:
And yet you know next to nothing about the Orthodox Church.

I am willing to admit my deficiencies and have bought and reading Orthodox Dogmatic theology and comparing it with Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott
Also picked up a copy of His Broken Body

Interesting reads that may be more fruitful than our banter back and forth here, although I do credit the discussion here which forced me to further study

Peace be with you

PatrickTate · Jul 31, 2025

BeyondET said:
Or the Spanish tickler

I knew that I didn't know what that meant so I Googled it.

Amo2 · Aug 2, 2025

Joseph McCabe - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

quote below from link above.

Joseph Martin McCabe (12 November 1867 – 10 January 1955) was an English writer and speaker on freethought, after having been a Roman Catholic priest earlier in his life. He was "one of the great mouthpieces of freethought in England".[1] Becoming a critic of the Catholic Church, McCabe joined groups such as the Rationalist Association and the National Secular Society. He criticised Christianity from a rationalist perspective, but also was involved in the South Place Ethical Society which grew out of dissenting Protestantism and was a precursor of modern secular humanism.

The Popes and Their Church, Joseph McCabe (1947) : Joseph McCabe : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

nwo

archive.org

Emphasis in the following quotes is mine. The book the chapter under examination is quoted from was first published in 1918, the last version being printed in 1947, which may be viewed and read at the above link. It is one hundred plus years old now, and the work of the most faithful minions of the papacy described therein, has been continuing to this day. Roman Catholic revisionist history has spread much further and wider since that time, as the final statement of the quoted chapter below indicates regarding Catholic involvement in the historical accounts of newer encyclopedias. Which entails a lot more than just encyclopedias, as we will examine in greater detail in future posts.

These views are of course far more popularly believed and defended today in our ever increasingly Roman Catholic nation, than during the days of its founding, and the predominant fathers of it. Who formed a Declaration of Independence and Constitution at and in direct contradiction to the political thoughts, teachings, and or dictates of the papacy of their time. Apparent contradictions which remain to this day, as is obvious to any who pay attention to papal encyclicals, doctrinal notes, and social justice agendas. My point is the reintroduction of recorded histories which have largely been removed from public sight, thought, or education with exact intent and purpose.

Excerpts from - THE POPES AND THEIR CHURCH By Joseph McCabe

SECTION II
THE CHURCH OF ROME TO-DAY

CHAPTER I
CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP

THE reader may perhaps wonder if it is possible in such countries as the United States, England, and Germany for the writers of any sect to fence their people from the scholarship of modern times. If the facts of Papal history are as I have described them, and they are — if historians generally are agreed upon those facts, and they are — surely it will not be possible for a handful of ecclesiastical historians to maintain in modern times' a version which falls materially short of the truth?

I will describe in a later chapter the discipline by which the Catholic laity are generally kept within the sacred compound prescribed by the Church. It is a serious error to suppose that Catholics are only forbidden to read books which are "on the Index." The Catholic is strictly instructed from childhood that the reading of "bad books" is as grave a fault as, or even graver than, sexual irregularity; and it is explicitly explained to him that any book "against faith or morals" falls into this category. A book against the faith, moreover, is any book which contradicts the teaching of Catholic literature on an important dogmatic point; certainly any book which "attacks" — that is to say, tells the true story of — the Church and the Papacy. The Catholic is thus restricted to his own literature; and each book recommended for his use has had to be examined and passed by the bishop..............................

These considerations will prepare the reader to learn that Catholic scholarship to-day vindicates the title "Holy See" by giving a grossly inaccurate version of the remarkable story I summarized in the last section.

Any person who lives within call of the reference-library of a large town may verify this without needing to examine scores of volumes. I will test my charge by the contents of the Catholic Encyclopædia, the most important and authoritative work published by the Church, the most recent co-operative enterprise of what it regards as its leading scholars. It is a vast work in sixteen large volumes, issued by the American Church — the wealthiest and most liberal branch of Roman Catholicism — between 1907 and 1912. "The object of the Encyclopædia is to give the whole truth without prejudice," and "in the determination of the truth the most recent and acknowledged scientific methods are employed." Scholars have been enlisted for this purpose from all parts of the Catholic world. The Encyclopædia represents, it modestly but firmly tells us, "Catholic scholarship in every part of the world." And it is as representative of such scholarship that I proceed to examine it.

Quite early in it occur two articles which are pertinent to my inquiry-the articles entitled "Apostolic See" and "Apostolic Succession." They are by the English scholar Dr. Wilhelm — with whose fine old English name the world is strangely unfamiliar — and they contain some remarkable specimens of "the latest and most accurate information." "As early as the fourth century," says Father Wilhelm, "the Roman See was already the Apostolic See par excellence, not only in the West, but also in the East." As far as the West is concerned, we readily grant that the Roman bishopric was "the Apostolic See par excellence," because it was the only Apostolic See; but of the East we have told, and will tell, a different story.

In the second of these short articles Father Wilhelm is equally "accurate" and "scientific." That Peter was at Rome and founded the Roman bishopric is, he says, "among the best-ascertained facts of history," and "no scholar now dare contradict it." As the point is, in my opinion, not of the least importance, I have not discussed it. But to say that Peter's activity is "among the best-ascertained facts of history" is — a fair specimen of "Catholic Truth"! If the reader cares to glance at another and more authoritative Encyclopædia, the Encyclopædia Britannica (article "Peter"), he will learn from Professor Lake, who is an authority, that evidence of Peter's mission to Rome is "not quite convincing," and has "often been bitterly attacked," but has a degree of probability. Only a few among non-Catholic historians admit it.

Then Father Wilhelm grows bolder. "In the third century," he says, "the Popes claim authority from the fact that they are St. Peter's successors, and no one objects to this claim." That is how we establish the Roman case by the "most recent and acknowledged scientific methods"! The reader may ask in surprise whether Father Wilhelm never heard of the Bishops of Asia Minor telling Pope Victor to mind his own business, or what Cyprian of Carthage said to the Pope for interfering in African matters, as I described in the first chapter. He will be still further surprised to hear that these episodes are precisely the proofs adduced by Father Wilhelm in support of his statement! How? Why, it is quite easy, in a Catholic atmosphere. You tell the indisputable fact that Victor asserted his supremacy in Asia, and that Cornelius received an appeal from Africa; and you do not tell the sequel.................................

His first proof is that as early as 95 or 96 A.D. Pope Clement I, in his "Letter to the Corinthians," very drastically interfered in the affairs of the Corinthian Church, and claimed that the Holy Spirit guided him in doing so. There you have the supremacy of Rome asserted and unchallenged within a generation of the death of Peter! But Father Joyce prudently omits to mention one point which, if he mentioned it, would deflate his splendid argument as a child pricks a balloon. There was probably no bishop of Corinth at the time. In the Catholic Encyclopædia itself the special authority on Clement, writing under that head, admits that this is held even by Catholic scholars. So, apart from the question of the genuineness of the letter, which is not undisputed (several letters were forged in Clement's name), it would follow at the most that the Pope interfered in a community which had no "overseer." However, the letter is, as I said, not a letter of Bishop Clement, but of the Church at Rome to the Church at Corinth.................................

In his fourth grand argument Father Joyce, like Father Wilhelm, takes the bull by the horns, and finds evidence in the unhappy adventure of Pope Victor. The Pope, he says, excommunicated the Asiatics; and their action "involved no denial of the supremacy of Rome," while St. Irenæus "assumed Victor had the power" and merely asked him to be lenient. Father Joyce is again prudent enough not to give the reference to the authority, lest some misguided Catholic should look up the English translation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History (v, 34). As we saw, the facts are an emphatic repudiation of Victor's claim of supremacy. The Asiatic bishops told Victor that they were not in the least "intimidated" by his threat of excommunication, that they flatly refused to obey him, and that they would "be judged by God, not man"; and the Western bishops "sharply attacked" Victor for his action.

In his fifth argument Father Joyce audaciously turns to St. Cyprian and the African Church! He is good enough to acknowledge that Cyprian's ideas of the Pope's power in some respects were "inadequate," but says that Cyprian granted Rome "a primacy, not merely of honour, but of jurisdiction"! If the reader will turn back and read the undisputed passages I quoted, he will ask in astonishment how even a Jesuit can achieve this? Prithee, in this way. He tells how Cyprian urges Stephen to write to Gaul, and he entirely suppresses the fact that the Gauls had appealed to both Cyprian and Stephen, and Cyprian had already written! Then he complacently concludes: "It is manifest that one who regarded the Roman See in this light believed that the Pope possessed a real and effective primacy." These are the "acknowledged scientific methods" — of Jesuits. This represents "Catholic scholarship in every part of the world." Then these Jesuits, I am told, write privately to inquiring Catholics, that "McCabe is quite discredited as an historian."

Does the reader still think my language intemperate? Does he think that "Catholic scholars" are just as learned and candid as any others? Does he begin to see the peculiarities of "Catholic Truth" even in its most responsible form? Does he perceive the advantage of forbidding the reading of "bad books"?..............................

Damasus is the only one of these fifty early Popes whose aureole of sanctity has been omitted from the list. But in the article on Damasus it is restored in an its splendour, and his life and work are gorgeously described. But what about those indisputable hundred and sixty corpses which his followers laid upon the floor of a church in the election fights? Quite easy. The followers of Ursicinus, the anti-Pope, "resorted to much violence and bloodshed" in their endeavour to force him upon the meek and long-suffering majority. Their corpses (one hundred and sixty in one church) and the weeks of bloody riot are not mentioned. So the miraculous sanctity of the Popes for four hundred years is safe; especially as we know absolutely nothing about the vast majority of them except the official panegyric. Where we do know a little it is "St." Victor, and "St." Callistus, and "St." Damasus, the tickler of women's ears...............................

Then we come to the adventurous Popes of the eighth and ninth and tenth centuries. There is in a Catholic publication a great advantage in scattering the Popes over sixteen large volumes instead of giving, as the Encyclopædia declines to give, a connected record of their lives. The Catholic does not get the cumulative sense of horror. He does not perceive that it is not a question of an occasional bad man, but of the degradation of the" Holy See" during long periods, of a century or more; and therefore his faith in the "supernatural gift" is less strained.

Of ambitious struggles for the Papacy, of violent and corrupt conclaves, of forged credentials, and so on, there is hardly any mention. Indeed, apart from one or two Popes who are claimed to have been mere pretenders (and are dyed as black as you like), only three of the Popes — John XII, Benedict IX, and Alexander VI — are admitted to have been bad men! One or two others may be "suspected," or "not above reproach," or immoral before they became Popes; but that is all. The rest is slander of the Holy Fathers. If you put end to end the biographies of the Popes in these sixteen volumes, you get a marvelous record of sanctity and devotion to the cause of humanity, interrupted only by three quite black sheep and two or three slightly spotted. Let us see how it is done...................

I take next Boniface VI, whose disreputable character is discreetly veiled, and the appalling Sergius, who is boldly defended against every charge. We are assured, on Father Mann's authority, that Sergius had no improper relations with Marozia (though Duchesne and other Catholic authorities admit this, and no serious historian doubts the evidence), and did not murder anybody. There is merely a grudging concession that he was rather a violent man, in a violent age. The little episode of the corpse of Form os us is not stressed. The "scientific method" of doing this is simple. When the contemporary writer Vulgarius assures us that Sergius was a murderer and a comprehensive blackguard, he is declared to be unreliable. When he (after being grimly summoned to Rome by Sergius) changes his note and sings the high and chaste virtues of Sergius and Theodora and Marozia, he is grossly quoted as an authority. When Bishop Liutprand tells us the vices of the Popes, he is quite unreliable; when he or any other writer mentions a good deed, it is put into the record without reserve.

By this method John X is next whitewashed by Father Kirsch (Professor at Freiburg), Father Mann's chief rival in the art. The charge against John's virtue is tossed aside as quite a foolish slander, on the ground that his supposed lover, Theodora, was advanced in years at the time (which is not stated) and was very virtuous (on the authority of Vulgarius in his second phase). I have in my history of the Papacy shown that Theodora may even have been in her thirties, as anybody can calculate, at the time which is suggested by Liutprand.

John XII is abandoned by the most heroic of apologists. His crimes are too notorious and varied. John XV and other shady Holy Fathers of that awful period are, however, resolutely varnished. Benedict VIII, the Count who seized the Papacy in 1003, is presented to us as a "great and strong ruler," but the apologetic ardour again fails before the notoriety of the crimes and vices of Benedict IX, whose monumental misdeeds are, however, lightly touched. Then we reach the period of good Popes, like Hildebrand, whose vagaries are buried under mounds of fragrant panegyric. So far the Encyclopædists have found only two bad Popes in a thousand years, and have conveyed not the faintest impression what Rome was like during the early Middle Ages.

All the ghastly fights for the Holy Seat before and after Hildebrand are ignored, and we wander through the flowery meads of the Middle Ages, as depicted by Catholics.........

That is "Catholic Truth" and "Catholic scholarship." It is, quite seriously, typical of the highest Catholic literature. Hefele, Gasquet, and all the rest are just as sophistical. Pastor's History of the Popes is the sole outstanding exception, but, as I have, frequently shown, even that is often lacking in candor, and the total picture is false because good and evil are not equally discussed. Father Mann's History of the Popes is like his articles: learned, based upon the original sources, but utterly lacking in sense of scholarship, a reckless partisan tract from beginning to end. Of more popular literature, or of other applications of "Catholic scholarship," I need not speak. I have justified my word. Catholics are forbidden to read the truth. What is purveyed to them under the name of "Catholic Truth" is a monstrous perversion of science and history. Not one Catholic in a million knows the true story of the "Holy See." And now their writers boast that they lent their assistance in the compilation of the last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica and have contributed to the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics.

Amo2 · Aug 2, 2025

Joseph Mccabe Lies Of Britannica » Internet Infidels

Quotes below are from the book which may be viewed at the link above. The next few posts will be from the following quoted book.

The Lies And Fallacies Of
The Encyclopedia Britanica

How Powerful And Shameless Clerical Forces Castrated
A Famous Work Of Reference

by Joseph McCabe

THE POPE'S EUNUCHS

A few years ago I had occasion to refer in one of my books to the male soprani of the papal chapel at Rome. These castrated males, sexually mutilated, as every priest and every Italian knew, for soprani in the choir of the Sistine Chapel, were the amusement of Rome when it developed a large degree of skepticism but a grave scandal to the American and British Catholics who began to arrive about the middle of the last century. One of the vices which the Spaniards had brought to Italy in the 16th century along with the Borgia family and the Spanish Roman Emperors was the falsetto singer. There were artists who could sing falsetto with distinction, but as the opera gained in popularity in Italy the practice began of emasculating boys with good voices and retaining them as male soprani or, as the Italians, with their usual lack of Christian reticence about sex called them, the castrati. They were in every opera in the 18th century, but foreign visitors were never reconciled to them. The famous English weekly,. The Spectator, wrote about "the shrill celestial whine of eunuchs," and by the end of the 18th century they began to fade out of the opera-house.

But, as the word "celestial" indicates, they were found also in the choir of all churches that were proud of their music, particularly in the chapel of the Vatican Palace. the Sistine Chapel, one of the greatest shrines of art as well as of virtue and piety in Rome. And the church, clung to their eunuchs when public opinion almost drove them out of opera. The plea seems to have been that there was some indelicacy, or risk of it, in having females in the church choir, so the priests chose to ignore the rather indelicate nature of the operation of emasculation. The fact was as well known as the celibacy of the clergy. Grovels standard "Dictionary of Music and Musicians" (1927) says in a section titled "Castrati":

"Eunuchs were in vogue as singers until comparatively recent times; they were employed in the choirs of Rome."

So Macmillan's and all other leading dictionaries of music, and English and American visitors to Rome before 1870 who wrote books rarely failed to mention, with smirks of humor or frowns of piety, how the beautiful music of the papal choir was due in large part to manufactured soprani. In the later years of the last century I talked with elderly men who had, out of curiosity, dined or lunched with these quaint servants of God.

An American reader wrote me that a Catholic friend, who had doubtless, as is usual, consulted his pastor, indignantly denied the statement. It was one of the usual "lies of Freethinkers." For an easily accessible authority, reliable on such a point, I referred him to the Encyclopedia Britannica. In all editions to 1928 the article "Eunuchs," after discussing the barbaric African custom of making eunuchs for the harem, said:

"Even more vile, as being practiced by a civilized European nation, was the Italian practice of castrating boys to prevent the natural development of the voice, in order to train them as adult soprano singers, such as might formerly be found in the Sistine Chapel. Though such mutilation is a crime punishable with severity, the supply of soprani never failed as long as these musical powers were in demand in high quarters. Driven long ago from the Italian stage by public opinion they remained the musical glory and the moral shame of the papal choir till the accession of Pope Leo XII, one of whose first acts was to get rid of them."

My correspondent replied, to my astonishment, that there was no such passage in the Britannica, and I began the investigation of which I give the results in the present little book. I found at once that in the 14th edition, which was published in 1929, the passage had been scandalously mutilated, the facts about church choirs suppressed, and the reader given an entirely false impression of the work of Leo XII. In this new edition the whole of the above passage is cut out and this replaces it:

"The Italian practice of castrating boys in order to train them as adult soprano singers ended with the accession of Pope Leo XIII."

The reader is thus given to understand that the zealous Pope found the shameless practice lingering in the opera-houses and forbade it. The fact, in particular, that the Church of Rome had until the year 1878 not only permitted this gross mutilation but required it for the purpose of its most sacred chapel -- that Pope Pius IX, the first Pope to be declared infallible by the Church, the only modern Pope for whom the first official stage of canonization was demanded, sat solemnly on his throne in the Sistine Chapel for 20 years listening to "the shrill celestial whine of eunuchs" -- were deliberately suppressed. Those facts are so glaringly inconsistent with the claims of Catholic writers in America that the suppression was clearly due to clerical influence, and I looked for the method in which it had been applied.

The Encyclopedia is, as its name implies, an ancient British institution inspired by the great French Encyclopedia of the 18th century. As the American reading public increased it served both countries, and by 1920 the special needs of American readers and the great development of science and technics made it necessary to prepare an entirely recast edition. It now had an American as well as a British staff and publishing house. and it was dedicated to King George and President Hoover. The last trace of the idealism of its earlier publishers disappeared. What bargains were secretly made to secure a large circulation we do not know but when the work was completed in 1928 the Westminster Catholic Federation which corresponds to the Catholic Welfare organization in America, made this boast in its annual report:

"The revision of the Encyclopedia Britannica was undertaken with a view to eliminate matter which was objectionable from a Catholic point of view and to insert what was accurate and unbiased. The whole of the 28 volumes were examined, objectionable parts noted, and the reasons for their deletion or amendment given. There is every reason to hope that the new edition of the Britannica will he found very much more accurate and impartial than its predecessors."

This blazing Indiscretion seems to have struck sparks in the publishing offices in London and New York -- later reprints of this emasculated edition have the imprint of "The University of Chicago," which seems to have taken over the responsibility -- for on August 9, 1929, a singular public notice appeared in what is called the Agony Column of the London Times. I should explain to American readers that the first page of this famous paper is given up to advertisements and public and private notices and the two central columns are so much used by separated and broken-hearted lovers ("Ethel. Where are you? I suffer agony for you. Your adoring George," etc.) and ladies who have lost their pets or are in need of money etc., that many frivolous folk take the paper for the humor of those two columns. One of the longest notices that ever appeared in it was that of August 9., It rung:

"Westminster Catholic Federation (in large type). On behalf of the Westminster Catholic Federation we desire to state that it has been brought to our attention that the wording of the second paragraph of the report of the Vigilance Sub-Committee of the Federation, (page 18 of the Federation's 21st Annual Report) concerning the forthcoming edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has apparently given rise to a misunderstanding. We therefore wish to make it clear that it was far from our intention in the above- mentioned report to suggest that the Federation has exercised any influence whatever upon the editing of the Encyclopedia. Such a suggestion would be devoid of any vestige of foundation. The facts are that the Federation offered to the Editor of the Encyclopedia its assistance in checking statements of fact appearing in articles in the previous edition dealing with the Catholic Church in its historical, doctrinal, or theological aspects. This offer was accepted, and the Federation was thus enabled to draw attention to certain errors of date and other facts regarding the teaching and discipline of the Catholic Church. Beyond this the Federation has had no hand whatever in the preparation or editing of articles for the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica on whatever subject, and any suggestions to the contrary is, as we have said, without the slightest foundation.

A.J., London, W.C.2."

I have stressed the essential part of this singular message so that the reader will bear in mind that Catholic authorities gave the public their solemn assurance that they had requested -- demanded might be a better word -- only alterations of wrong dates and statements about the teaching and discipline of the Church.

Penitence is a familiar and beautiful practice in the Catholic world but we common folk like to have truth even in penitence. The example I have already given of the suppression of material facts and a natural comment on them in regard to eunuch singers and the entirely false impression conveyed by the sentences which Catholics supplied gives the lie at once to this apology. Undisputed facts which are strictly relevant to an examination of Catholic claims have been suppressed. They have nothing to do with dates or the teaching and discipline of the Church. It is an axiom of Catholic moral theology that suppression of the truth is a suggestion of untruth," and the substituted passage goes beyond this. I propose to show that this introduction of a, painfully familiar Catholic policy has been carried right through the Encyclopedia. Naturally the immense majority of its articles do not in any way relate to the church, and I do not claim that I have compared every short notice or every sentence in longer articles, in the 11th and 14th editions of the Britannica. Even these short unsigned notices, referring to such matters as popes and saints, have often been falsified, and I give a few examples. But I am mainly concerned with important alterations. There are still passages in the Encyclopedia which the Catholic clergy do not like. Writers who are still alive may have objected to the adulteration of their work, or the facts may be too notorious for the editors to permit interference. But I give here a mass of evidence of the corrupt use of the great power which the Catholic Church now has: a warning of what the public may expect now that that Church has, through its wealth and numbers, secured this pernicious influence on publications, the press, the radio, and to an increasing extent on education and even the cinema.

Amo2 · Aug 3, 2025

Joseph Mccabe Lies Of Britannica » Internet Infidels

The Lies And Fallacies OfThe Encyclopedia Britanica

CASTRATING THE ENCYCLOPEDIA

It will be useful to give first the outcome of a somewhat cursory survey, page by page, of the first few volumes of the Encyclopedia. More important -- in their bearing on the Church -- articles in later volumes commonly have the initial X at the close, which seems to be the cloak of the Catholic adulterator. This will enable any reader to compare for himself passages in the 11th and the 14th editions, but the conspirator shows his hand even in large numbers of short unsigned, especially biographical, notices. It is, of course, understood that the work had to be considerably abbreviated to accommodate new developments of science and life, in the 14th edition, but when you find that the curtailing consists in suppressing an unpleasant judgment or a fact about a Pope while unimportant statements of fact are untouched, and when you find the life of a saintly man or the flattering appreciation of his work little affected while the life or work of a heretic is sacrificed, you have a just suspicion.

An example is encountered early in the first volume in the short notices of the Popes Adrian I and Adrian II. Adrian was the Pope of Charlemagne's time, and every historian knows that the emperor came, as he shows in his letters, to despise the Pope and to defy him on a point of doctrine; 'for at that time the use and veneration of statues in the churches was made a doctrinal issue between East and West. The notice of Adrian in the older edition of the Encyclopedia was one of those inexpert paragraphs by some man who knew nothing about the importance of the quarrel, but a priestly hand has untruthfully inserted in the new edition:

"The friendly relations between Pope and Emperor were not disturbed by the difference which arose between them on the question of the veneration of images."

Here, instead of abbreviating, the editor gratuitously inserts new matter, and it is untruthful. The Pope, whose safety depended upon the favor of Charlemagne, said little, it is true, but at a time when "the veneration of images" -- as historians persist in calling statues. -- was the greatest issue in the Church, Charlemagne put his own name to a book in which Roman practice and theory were denounced as sinful, the whole Gallician Church was got to support him, and the timid protests of the Pope were contemptuously ignored.

The touch in the notice of Pope Adrian II has just as little to do with dates and discipline and is just the suppression of a fact which the Church does not like. The real interest of the Pope is that he presided over the Church in the latter part of the 9th century, the time when it was sinking into its deepest degradation. The appalling coarseness of life is seen in the fact that the Pope's daughter was abducted by the son of a bishop and brother of a leading cardinal, and when the Pope got the Emperor to send troops, he murdered them. The notice of the Pope in the 11th edition adds that "his (the noble abductor) reputation suffered but a momentary eclipse," which is perfectly true, for the abducting family were high both in church and nobility and the Romans in large part supported them. But the sentence has been cut out of the new edition. Little touches of that sort, not always condensing the text but always -- and generally untruthfully -- in the interest of the Church occur repeatedly..........................................

The article "Albigensians" is one in which a modern student would most surely expect a modern encyclopedia to replace the conventional old article by one in line with our historical knowledge. Instead of this we get a page article reduced to half a page, and this is done chiefly by cutting out 25 lines in which the older writer had honestly explained that the Pope turned the brutal Knights of France upon the Albigensians only when 20 years preaching failed to make the least impression on them and 10 lines showing what "vast inquests" of the Inquisition were still needed after years of slaughter by the Pope's savage "crusaders." We therefore recognize the anointed hand of the abbreviator. And it is clear that the editor or sub-editor cheated the public of a most important truth by entrusting this article to Catholic "correctors of dates and discipline." We now fully realize the importance from the angle of the history of civilization of this brilliant but anti-Christian little civilization in the South of France (close to Arab Spain) and what Europe lost. Of the brutality of the massacre and the Pope's dishonesty in engineering it the reader is, of course, given no idea, though these are found in the Pope's extant letters.

Even such articles as that on "Alembert" -- the famous French skeptic and scientist D'Alembert -- seem to have been handed over to the clerical shearer, for the proper appreciation of his character and ability and his work against the Jesuits are the chief material that has been abbreviated, but we turn with more interest to the "Alexander" Popes. I need not say, that anybody who expects an up-to-date account of the great Alexandrian schools of science and of the splendor of life under the early Ptolemies will be deeply disappointed, but it is chiefly the name of Pope Alexander VI which here catches the eye,

Catholics long ago abandoned their attempts to whitewash the historical figure of that amazingly erotic and unscrupulous Spaniard and especially after the work of the Catholic historian Dr. L. Pastor it is impossible to suggest outside the Sunday School that there has been any libelling of this Pope. What the clerical retouchers have mainly done is to remove sentences in which the older writer correctly, though only casually and incidentally, let the reader know that such a Pope was possible only because the Church was then extraordinarily corrupt. He admitted, for instance, that Alexander had been notoriously corrupt for years, as a cardinal, when he was elected Pope:

"Although ecclesiastical corruption was then at its height his riotous mode of life called down upon him a very severe reprimand from Pope Pius II."

This is cut out, of course, though we still have the letter in which the Pope -- himself a rake in his early years, by the way -- describes the cardinal's scandalous life. Cut out also (for abbreviation) is this passage:

"A characteristic instance of the corruption of the papal court is the fact that Borgia's daughter Lucrezia lived with his mistress Giulia, who bore him a daughter, Laura, in 1492 (the year of his consecration as Pope)."

In short, while it would have elicited the scorn of historians to attempt to suppress all mention of Alexander's mistresses and children the article of the 11th edition, which was correct as far as it went, is so manipulated that the reader has no idea that the Cardinal was brazen in his conduct at the actual time of his election and entertained his mistress, who was painted on one of the walls of the Vatican Palace as the Virgin Mary, and his children in the "sacred Palace"; and that this was due to the general sordid corruption of the Church. Sexual looseness was the least pernicious of Borgia's vices, but where the old article noticed that his foreign policy was inspired only by concern to enrich his children and "for this object he was ready to commit any crime and to plunge all Italy into war," this Catholic stickler for accuracy has cut it out.

Soon after Alexander we come to Antonelli. This man was Cardinal Secretary of State to Pope Gregory XVI and Pope Pius IX, who is counted a saint by American Catholics. He was the son of a poor wood-cutter and he died a millionaire: he left $20,000,000 -- leaving a bastard daughter, a countess to fight greedy relatives for it. He had refused to take priestly orders because he wanted freedom. His greed, looseness and complete indifference to the vile condition of the Papal States were known to everybody. In the 11th edition we read of him:

"At Antonelli's death the Vatican finances were found to be in disorder, with a deficit of, 45,000,000 lire. His personal fortune, accumulated during office, was considerable and was bequeathed almost entirely to his family. . . . His activity was directed almost exclusively to the struggle between the Papacy and the Italian Risorgimento, the history of which is comprehensible only when the influence exercised by his unscrupulous grasping and sinister personality is fully taken into account."

The last part of this now reads "Is comprehensible only when his unscrupulous influence is fully taken into account." Apart from the one word "unscrupulous" the reader is totally misled as to his character.

The article on Aquinas was already written favorably to the Church and only a few light touches were needed.. But the eagle eye caught. a sentence, perfectly accurate but offensive to Catholics, in the short notice of the noblest figure of the 12th century, Arnold of Biresoi &. It said:

"At the request of the Pope he was seized by order of the Emperor ... and hanged."

Out goes the reference to the Pope, who had tried for years to catch Arnold before he acted on a perjured passport from the Emperor; and no idea is given of the remarkable position of the premature democrat in the history of European thought.

More amusing is the manipulation of the notice of "Arthur" of Britain. In the 11th edition he is frankly presented to the reader as a myth, as the popular conception of him certainly is. All that we can say with any confidence is that there seems to have been a sort of captain named Arthur in the ragged military service of one of the half-civilized and wholly brutal British "kings" after the departure of the Romans. In this new compendium of modern scholarship (now sponsored by the University of Chicago) Arthur has been converted into an undisputed and highly respectable reality; a "King of Britain" who led his Christian armies against the pagan Anglo-Saxons. And this is done on the authority of a monk who wrote two and a half centuries later! There is no proof that this fine achievement is due to the Catholic Federation, but just as detectives look for the trade-mark of a particular burglar when a bank has been robbed...................

Early in the B's we get the same light touches of the clerical brush. The long and appreciative article on the great jurist and Atheist Jeremy Bentham -- that he was an outspoken Atheist is, of course, not stated -- one of the most powerful idealists of the post-Napoleonic period, is mercilessly cut, while the old notices of the insignificant Pope Benedicts remain. At least, I notice only one cut. It is said in the old article that "Benedict IX, perhaps the vilest man who ever wore the tiara -- his almost immediate successor spoke of his "rapes, murders, and other unspeakable acts" -- appears to have died impenitent." That is cut out. It saves so much space..................................

I say the Catholic censor but there was obviously team-work on both sides of the Atlantic, though Gildea is the only sophist mentioned on the American side. And the next item to catch the clerical eye and raise the clerical blood-pressure was the fair article on "Giordano Bruno," in the 11th edition. You can almost see the fury with which the three columns are reduced to less than a column in the 14th edition, and this is done by cutting out about 100 lines of sober appreciation of the great ex-monk and scholar's ability and character. Cutting out flowers is not enough. A new paragraph informs the innocent reader:

"Apart from his disdainful, boasting nature and his attack on contemporary Christianity, the chief causes of Bruno's down-fall were his rejection of the Aristotelic astronomy for the Copernican ... and his pantheistic tendencies."

The undisputed truth is that he was burned alive by the Papacy, which came to a corrupt agreement with the Venetians in order to get hold of him and satisfy its bitter hatred of the critic...................................

More definitely and recognizably Catholic is the tampering with the notice of St. Catherine. There are two saints of that name, Catherine of Alexandria and Catherine of Siena, and the 11th edition rightly said:

"Of the former history has nothing to tell ... that St. Catherine actually existed there is no evidence to disprove, and it is possible that some of the elements in her legend are due to confusion with the story of Hypatia."

This was moderate enough. We do not have to "disprove" the existence of martyrs, and the supposed evidence in favor of her historicity is now rejected even by some Catholic experts on martyrs, while the details are often comical and the general idea is certainly based upon Hypatia. Yet in this severely-examined and up-to-date compendium of knowledge we find the first sentence of the above changed to: Of St. Catherine of Alexandria history has little to tell." The rest is cut out and, we are brazenly told that "her actual existence is generally admitted." The article on Catherine of Siena was already inaccurately favorable to Catholic claims in the 11th edition, so it is allowed to stand. The masterful Siennese nun had nothing like the political influence ascribed to her, and it was not she but the threats of the Romans that brought the Popes back from Avignon to Rome.

In the article "Church history," to which in the new edition, the ominous X is appended, there are just slight changes here and there in the generally orthodox article. The treatment is as far removed from modern thought as Alaska is from Florida. It is much the same with the string of Popes who had the name Clement, The reader is still not told that many historians refuse to admit "Clement I" as the first of the Popes -- he is completely ignored in the Letter of the Romans to the Corinthians of the year 96 A.D. and many of the other Clements, who were notoriously of disreputable character, are discreetly retouched, though the earlier notices let them off lightly. Clement V, a Plrench adventurer, who sold himself to the French King on vile conditions in order to get the, Papacy, has the words "in pursuance of the King's wish he summoned the Council of Vienna" (to hold a trial of the monstrous vices of his predecessor and the still more scandalous vices of the Knights Templer, as we shall see) changed to: "Fearing that the state would proceed independently against the alleged heresies he summoned the Council of Vienna"; which is one sort of abbreviation and leaves the reader entirely ignorant of the character of the Pope. Clement VI, a notoriously sensuous and dissipated man, is left in his Catholic robes. Of Clement VII the earlier edition said: "Though free from the grosser vices of his predecessors he was a man of narrow outlook and interests." The whole of this is cut out, suppressing both his vices and those of his predecessors. Clement XIV is said to have suppressed the Jesuits only because he thought it necessary for the peace of the Church. This is a familiar Jesuit claim and an audacious lie. In the bull of condemnation Clement endorses all the charges against the Jesuits

The article "Conclave" sounds like one that was ripe for the shearer, but even in the 11th edition it was written by a priest. And it had a Jesuit touch that the censor is careful not to correct. As the leading authority it names a Catholic work which, in any case, few have any chance to consult, while it does not mention the standard history of Papal Conclaves, that of Petrucelli della Gattina (four volumes of amazing disclosures), of which there is now an English version (V. Petrie's "Triple Crown," 1935). But of little tricks of this kind, especially in pressing "Sound" authorities upon the reader and concealing from him that there are good critical works that he ought to read, there is so much that it would be tiresome to trace it all. We will consider larger matters.

boughtwithaprice · Aug 3, 2025

Amo2 said:
Joseph Mccabe Lies Of Britannica » Internet Infidels

Quotes below are from the book which may be viewed at the link above. The next few posts will be from the following quoted book.

For the past 60 years, the Catholic Church has removed her influence over publications, the press, radio, education and, oh my, even the cinema! Humans are free to do as they please

Do you really like what you see in the 21st century world apart from Catholic influence?
Sounds more like Noah’s day, everyone is right in their own eyes.

Wonton sexuality, ritual blood sacrifice, blasphemers, proud, lovers of creature rather than the Creator. Great plan overthrowing that evil Catholic Church, sarcastic eye roll. Protestants have been given the helm since the founding of the United States. What have you done with it ?

Amo2 · Aug 9, 2025

boughtwithaprice said:
Your point being?

Let’s just say a sect formed that demanded a great many people use only the New World Translation of the Bible in your congregation

If you Church had the power, would you want it propagated or suppressed?

Just because something was censored does not make it true

I would not be a member of a church that demanded such, and was actively involved in the censorship of materials or information, especially outside of their own denomination. Even more so, if or when they have proved their willingness to use immoral, coercive, and or abusive political power and mandates to force such upon people. All of which directly contradict the exemplary life, teachings, and practice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Amo2 · Aug 9, 2025

boughtwithaprice said:
Don’t understand your question as the Catholic Church has always wanted to get the word of God out to as many people as possible

Statements to the contrary are misleading and false

If one actually reads and researches the history instead of listening to propaganda surrounding it, the Church is vindicated every time

The exact points we disagree upon, and are contending here. You are of course free to express your above opinion as oft as you see fit.

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