Did the Roman Catholic Church have a right to burn books which did not correspond with their ideology?

Question

Did the Roman Catholic Church have a right to burn books which did not correspond with their ideology?

Answer 1

As a 3 time university graduate (you can call me Doctor), having spent many years in college along with MANY bucks both on registration fees as well as the innumerable books and other written material I had to purchase over the years, I can tell you that I feel completely free to burn any and all books I have that I don't like. I can't recall that I have burned any, but I have gotten rid of a few. And I'll speak against any and all books I feel are destructive to man's knowledge and faithfulness to Jesus our Christ. Gee, maybe I'm that way because I've been a Roman Catholic for almost 60 years now! Or maybe it's because I'm educated enough to know truth from B.S., and I've worked hard enough to learn one from the other, or, as similarly put, I've learned right from wrong in a myriad of ways. Do I see any similarity between the early Church and Nazi Germany? Yeah, right. Much the same similarity as I see between you and wisdom. None whatsoever. God Bless you.

Answer 2

Not really. There's a difference between what is profane and what is simply disagreement. Even in our enlightened modern age, we don't tolerate what is pornographic or what condones that which is harmful to society or people in general. Perhaps we frown upon what see as early censorship, but people were neither literate nor educated in those days, and unable to really tell the difference between the truth (which as a Catholic you should acknowledge) and an attractively-given but false message. You and I, as people who are required to spend 16 years in education and who could continue learning all our lives, are capable of telling the difference in a critical fashion between Gnosticism and Catholic Christianity. You and I can go to a non-Catholic house of worship and engage in tolerant learning or even ecumenism without our understanding of our faith being attacked. Could 1st century Christians, who were illiterate and had no formal schooling other than their father's trade or their mother's housekeeping? If you were a leader in the Church, would you tolerate some Gnostic coming in and saying "Hey, I just want to provide an alternate opinion that Jesus isn't really divine, and you Catholics are doing this whole thing wrong."?



Gnosticism is antithetical to Christianity - it seeks simply what is divine and preaches that salvation is a matter of severing earthly ties. There were multiple forms that developed over the ages, all of which denied profound truths that we cling to - that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, that His death and resurrection were necessities (as opposed to mere symbols), that the God of the Old Testament is really Satan in the New Testament, etc.



I don't understand the modern compassion for heretics or the antagonism towards decisions made by people who lived in a different time with a different mindset. If the Moorish invasion of 711 had really happened today, maybe we'd have diplomatic negotiations and discuss ways to settle disputes. At the time, instead we had men on horseback with swords who saw a strange-looking lot of people coming across the waters and taking over cities and villages. The result was 700 years of warfare on the Iberian peninsula. Likewise with the heretics, we look at them through the lens of religious freedom and somehow feel outraged over their treatment, maybe we even think of them as the folks in airports who pass out religious literature and ask for donations. Records of heretics, though, show they weren't simply nice people trying to find a different way to the truth, or heroic rebels with a cause. Some of them started wars. The Flagellators and Castrators were as nice as they sounded (Heaven was reached by destroying your own body to kill your own base desires). The Church engaged in talks with the Cathars for almost a decade, but warfare erupted after the Cathars assassinated a diplomat from the Vatican. The Bogomils were essentially a syncretism between Catholicism and ritual magick - their focus was on warding off evil spirits.



So no, I don't see a similarity between the early (or even later) Church and Nazi Germany. The Nazis wanted only to remain in power and caused directly the deaths of six million plus, and indirectly (from WWII) the deaths of another 40 million. The Church was the bright spot in an otherwise dark and brutal world.

Answer 3

I don't understand what you mean by "a right" They had the power and so needed nothing else. Burning books is always a short sighted way of dealing with any ideas you don't like as you can never burn them all and the ideas still live on. Also the very act of burning them will unify any opposition to your ideas that may be out there I read the other answers and we have some very sick people on this site

Answer 4

Christopher Christian Cage, I have heard this lie before, and no anti-Catholic bigot has ever produced any reliable reference to support it. SOME crazy Catholics MAY HAVE burned books in the past, but they were not acting on behalf of the Church. Some secular governments may have burned books in the name of the Church, but not the Church. And the Coptic Church is Catholic, which further demonstrates your hateful misinformation. And many of the Gnostic Gospels are still around, you can get them on line. You are sadly misinformed, or just another one of many lieing anti-Catholic bigots.

Answer 5

First of All you are not Catholic ...so don't Lie ...No Catholic would talk or think like you....so you may have been baptized a Catholic but you are no longer ...and your analogy is in accurate ...you are a wanna be ..Gnostic who is lying to try to promote his false beliefs...that is why the Church burned your books..because they were lies and were promoted by liars like yourself.....The Church does not want people who do not follow the Teachings of Christ to ever sway people in the wrong direction.....



Whoa unto thee who lead my flock astray, best they never been born..they will suffer a fate worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Gospel of the Lord

Answer 6

Yes they had the right to burn those books Catholic faith is the only true faith founded by Jesus Christ. The church is led by the Holy Spirit. No other church is.You cannot compare the church with the Nazi.

Answer 7

The Gnostic gospels are fakes, which only serve to lead people away from God's honest truth.



If I remember correctly, the Church not only burned heretical books, but unrepentant heretics, as well.



The message: Better to burn now, than for an eternity, in hell.



You may recall that it was Jesus Christ, while he still walked the earth, who gave St. Peter, the first pope, the awesome and virtually unrestricted power to bind and loose, on earth and in heaven ... book burning not excepted.



As for the Nazi's ... Hitler and his 3rd Reich considered his administration to be the 2nd coming, and Hitler thought of himself as God, as did many of his followers.



The Catholic Church belongs to Jesus Christ, who is God. It was Jesus Christ who promised to bless and keep his Church until the end of time (in spite of some of the corrupt people who run it and who belong to it.)



Try to keep that in mind, as your faith becomes more informed and mature.

Answer 8

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No I do not. The Nazi Regime was not instituted by Christ and given his authority. The Church was. The Nazi Regime was burning books that did not agree with their views. The Catholic Church burned heretical books that endangered the souls of the faithful, and may lead them astray. It was not personal belief that was at stake but divine truth.



So no I do not see the similarity. The Catholic Church is a divine institution, not man made as the Nazi's were.

Answer 9

I'm Catholic with the same beliefs as you are.

But if they do that, I'll burn them.

I know they hate Harry Potter because it 'supports' wizardry, written by a Christian author.

I'll burn them if they do that.

Answer 10

Catholic Church burned books because they considered these books were bad for your soul-

Nazi's had a total opposite reason for burning books, to destroy hope, faith, memories, instill fear, they were bent on destruction of communities, religion, because these were things that could actually work against them... it had nothing to do with saving souls, but destroy them...

Answer 11

Hello,



Yes and I view this in the context of the times. Back then, Church and state were intertwined and separation in social philosophy did not come until the later 18th century. Certain books and gospels were at times considered a clear and present danger to the fabric of those societies and were treated accordingly. The Nazis got a little ridiculous since there were great works of writing approved by all segments of world society as well as churches but their purpose was to purge anything not written by a German, isolating themselves as if they were the only literate country in the world.



By the way, America is certainly not out of the dog house on this one. Here is a list of books that had been banned from one time to another:



Books Banned at One Time or Another in the United States



A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Blubber by Judy Blume

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

Carrie by Stephen King

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Christine by Stephen King

Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Cujo by Stephen King

Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen

Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite

Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

Decameron by Boccaccio

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Fallen Angels by Walter Myers

Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland

Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Forever by Judy Blume

Grendel by John Champlin Gardner

Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Have to Go by Robert Munsch

Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman

How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Impressions edited by Jack Booth

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

My House by Nikki Giovanni

My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara

Night Chills by Dean Koontz

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Ordinary People by Judith Guest

Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective

Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz

Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

Separate Peace by John Knowles

Silas Marner by George Eliot

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Bastard by John Jakes

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth

The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder

The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks

The Living Bible by William C. Bower

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman

The Pigman by Paul Zindel

The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders

The Shining by Stephen King

The Witches by Roald Dahl

The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder

Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff

Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth



Don't forget the Beatle record burning scenario in the mid 60's after John Lenon said they were more popular than Jesus Christ.



Cheers,



Michael Kelly

Answer 12

You know they say Hind Sight is 20/20 and i do not understand how so many people try to judge the past with today's understanding and morals. So no i do not see any real comparison at all.

Answer 13

It was not just the Church that was not friendly to other faiths in the middle ages. The pagans were just as bad to Christians and the Muslims often acted just as bad as pagans and Christians. People of all kinds have socially evolved substantially since that time. The nazis are disgusting for trying to make humans revert to intolerance and destruction.

Answer 14

Typical Anti-Catholic non intelligence.



Those who own the books may "do" whatever they wish with their property.



Why do elitist liberals always blame others for their mistakes? Why do they scream about the speck in others eye while ignoring the plank in their own eye?

Answer 15

dear friend, remember that the catholic church has removed much more than anyone who is not orthodox knows. have u heard of the apocrypha? apocryphos in greek means hidden. the pope hid them. they are only present in orthodox bibles. by the way, heresy comes from the greek word aeresis meaning choosing not a latin word. the catholic church never had the right to burn books. that is why the orthodox church is the only true church.



And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.



revelation 22:19

Answer 16

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe in freedom of expression and those who want the world to conform to their point of view. The second will destroy books and other texts.

Answer 17

Anything that opposes the teachings of Christ is wrong.

Answer 18

When you controlled the largest army in the known world you could do exactly what you wanted since you made up your own rules.

Answer 19

The bible is just a collection of other religious story put together by a council

so in the early days even the catholics would have gone against the other versions of the bible

Answer 20

[citation needed]

Answer 21

Faced with these perplexing questions, I sought for the answers elsewhere in Sacred Scripture - I resorted to "interpretation by correlation," the method of interpretation that had served me so well before. And again this method did not fail me. A close analysis of all the pertinent Bible texts revealed that the Jews did not understand Christ to mean symbolical bread. They understood Him to mean bread that consisted of His true and living flesh. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" they argued (John 6:53). Christ was speaking not in the figurative sense but in the literal sense, those Jews surmised; and they must have surmised correctly because Christ made no attempt to change their thinking; instead, He repeated Himself, laying even greater stress on the literal sense of His words:









"Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed." (John 6:54-56



Speaking right out of my Bible, Christ my Lord said to me:









"I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world." (John 6:48-52)



This is that disciple who giveth testimony of these things, and hath written these things; and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written." (John 21:24-25).



"Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle." (2 Thess. 2:14). "And we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they have received of us." (2 Thess. 3:6).



Are Catholics encouraged to read and meditate upon the Scriptures privately in their own homes? Indeed they are. Contrary to what many Protestants think - contrary to what I myself had long believed - Catholics are constantly being told, in sermons, in letters from their Bishop, and in Papal encyclicals, the spiritual good that will come from keeping a Bible in the home and daily meditating on its content. Wrote Pope Pius XII in the Encyclical Letter, On the Promotion of Biblical Studies: "For the Sacred Books were not given by God to men to satisfy their curiosity or to provide them with material for study and research, but, as the Apostle observes, in order that these Divine Oracles might "instruct us to salvation, by the faith which is in Christ Jesus,' and 'that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work.'" p Bishops should help "excite and foster among Catholics a greater knowledge of and love for the Sacred Books. Let them favor, therefore, and lend help to those pious associations whose aim it is to spread copies of the Sacred Letters, especially of the Gospels, among the faithful, and to procure by every means that in Christian families the same be read daily with piety and devotion . . .for, as St. Jerome, the Doctor of Stridon, says: "To ignore the Scripture is to ignore Christ."

I know, about now you are probably thinking: "If the Catholic Church is the teaching church described in Bible prophecy, why does she suppress the Bible? Why does she bypass the Bible by drawing upon tradition for some of her articles of faith? Why does she indulge in such unscriptural practices as praying to Christ's mother, Mary?"



I reply to that, dear friend, is this: Go to the Catholic Church as I went to the Catholic Church; conduct an on-the-spot investigation of Catholic teaching and practice as I did; and you will find out, as I found out, that all those stories about the Catholic Church suppressing and bypassing the Bible are as false as false can be. And you will find out that there is absolutely nothing unscriptural about praying to Christ's Blessed Mother.



I realize that this is a lot to ask. Like me you have probably been taught to distrust and stay strictly away from everything labeled Roman Catholic. But, believe me, you must go to the Catholic Church if you want complete and accurate knowledge of her teachings and practices

How significant and thought-provoking those statements of the primitive Christian Fathers are. How significant that every time they mentioned the teaching church of Jesus Christ it was the Catholic Church, never one of the Coptic churches, or one of the Orthodox churches. And who should know better than they which Christ.

Answer 22

no