The Vatican's Naughty Library

Rerun: Circulated in some form since the 16th century, the ‘Index of Forbidden Books’ was quietly discontinued by Pope Paul VI on 14th June, 1966.
In its 400-year+ history, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum had censored hundreds of authors including the German astrologer Keppler, the philosopher Kant, and Protestant theologians Martin Luther and John Calvin. But Darwin wasn’t included - because all books about atheism were automatically considered heretical.
In this episode, Rebecca, Arion and Olly explain the processes behind the scenes; revisit some choice exchanges between Catholic scholars; and reveal the books they’d ban forever - if only they could...
Further Reading:
• ‘Roman Catholics: The Issue of Imprimatur’ (TIME, 1966): http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,836269,00.html
• Wikipedia’s list of Authors and Works in the Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_authors_and_works_on_the_Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum
• ‘Vatican: Forbidden Works’ from Journeyman Pictures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_S81oSR2AA

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Each Thursday and Friday we repeat stories from our archive of 800+ episodes, so we can maintain the quality of our independent podcast and bring you fresh, free content every Monday-Wednesday… 

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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.
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