It should also be pointed out the purpose of having a list of banned books in the first place. The Vatican in having this list provided to its members of a list of books that taught heretical positions, and as such it was a warning to them. It isn't as if you read one of these books that you were excommunicated.
The reason why certain Bibles were put on the list is two-fold. 1) some Bibles are not well translated and have false and confusing readings due to the translation. A perfect example of this would be the Jehovah Witness Bible. 2) most bibles even during this period of the advent of the printing press had footnotes, and some of them pretty extensive. These footnotes are used by readers for better clarification of proper reading of passages. Obviously if these footnotes are heretical, then you run the risk of someone being led astray from the truth.
This is not something unique to the Catholic Faith and making such claims is quite dishonest. When I was Pentecostal and Baptist, we were warned about reading certain books, watching certain movies, and listening to certain types of music. At that time I was under the impression, that this was something not unique to these denominations. Granted the UPC did not allow its members to watch TV or Movies at all (which the older I get, I am starting to see that this may be a prudent act).
So if your Church advocates their members to read and watch anything they want without providing some type of advice to its members on what to avoid, quite honestly are you really being prudent toward your parishioners?
When it comes to ecclesiastical recommendation of books, I can absolutely see the merits in having tools like the
Nihil obstat or the
Imprimatur. They're quite helpful in defining the range of positions available to Catholics, the diversity found within the church, and as general guides to positions of the church beyond what can be found in official church proclamations and semi-official publications like the Catechism.
However, having an Index of Prohibited is, as far as I'm concerned, a very different matter. Outright prohibiting the reading of various materials doesn't help anyone in their search for truth. It hinders it. Reading the Qur'an, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammpada, or Calvin's Institutes can help clarify one's own identity as a Catholic or a Lutheran just as well, and sometimes better, than merely reading one's own positions. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Index was
abolished.
And this is one thing I just can't grasp about Catholicism: an inability to admit mistakes even when those mistakes have been rectified. The Index was abolished? Great, but it was done by the church at some time so it must still be defended. Hus was burned by the Council of Constance for advocating vernacular worship and communion in both bread and wine? Couldn't have been a mistake, even though Vatican II took up both proposals.
One of the marvelous things about Catholicism is it's conservative development: a slow, deliberate, reasoned adaptation over large historical time scales that allows for progressive change but avoids temporary fads. But this exists together with a belief in the infallibility of the church so strong that it simultaneously denies its own strength. By refusing to see that the church has erred, Catholics ignore some of the greater triumphs of Catholicism.
This is less of a problem with the progress has happened within the church itself, as when Trent addressed the problems of corruption in the church, or Vatican II outright accepted proposals by Hus and Luther that were condemned at Trent. Trent and Vatican II can be celebrated. But for those of us left in the historical dust- Lutherans in particular- this feature of Catholicism can seriously impede interchurch relations and attempts at reuniting the Western Church. And I, for one, want that. I want to be Catholic,
Roman Catholic, in union with the bishop of Rome and celebrating the liturgy under the auspices of an ordained bishop. But the character of Catholicism has essentially shut off the possibility of union except through submission, and that submission is not to Christ but to mistakes the church has made and, however much they could be admitted if they were purely internal, cannot be admitted in the face of schismatics like myself.
