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Show A French Freethinker's Defense of the Index. The recent condemnation of irreligious irrelig-ious textbooks by the French bishops has given the irreligious press . of France a pretext for repeating their attacks at-tacks upon the church, and especially against the Index. , The common sense view of the matter, was given about fifty years ago by the rationalist, Francisque Sarcey, a well known literary critic and a member of the French Academy. He wrote: "In my opinion it is one of the most silly commonplaces of free thought to cry out against the congregation of the Index and its condemntion of certain books. Why, here are men with definite defi-nite beliefs, and with a mission to protect pro-tect those beliefs against atf.cks from outside men, who conscientiously consider con-sider this mission a grave duty; they read a newly published book and then they say to those who share their faith: 'Be careful! The ideas scattered through this book are subversive of the fundamental principles on which our faith rests. In reading it you might unconsciously adopt dangerous notions. We warn you of the danger.' Is there anything in words like these but what is perfectly in harmony with reason and common sense? Please remark well that the congregation of the Index does not address its decrees to unbelievers, on whom it has no influence. T hese are therefore, entirely free to buy and if they p lease, to learn by heart the works censured by the church. What reason, then, have they to complain? "The decrees of the church are only for Catholics; they come to her as faithful faith-ful children and ask: 'Mother, may I read this book?' She answesr: 'No, my children, it would be dangerous for your eternal salvation. . .' The censure cen-sure of a book by the Index, then, consists con-sists in putting a label upon the work with the inscription, 'Do not read this under pain of eternal damnation.' Those, therefore, who do not believe in eternal damnation, have nothing to fear from this censure. "The congregation of the Index does exactly what we literary critics are constantly doing when we warn the public not to read books written with bad taste or in a bad style. Those who have no faith in use disregard the warning; warn-ing; but in giving it we fulfill our mission. mis-sion. In the same way the Index fulfills ful-fills a duty in warning the faithful of the dangers to which they expose themselves them-selves by reading certain books. Who can blame the congregation for this? How is it, then, that some free thinkers cry out against a procedure which they themselves use in a more drastic and more tyrannical way?" |