This past week, I re-watched “The Count of Monte Cristo” based on the literary classic by the same name. I was curious how well it followed the book, which I began reading. It is so well-written that after reading 80 out of the 1064 pages, I wanted to find out more about the author, Alexander Dumas. To my surprise, I found internet sources claiming that the book was on the Index of Forbidden Books with reasons that it tells of an illegitimate birth, extra-marital affairs, and revenge. However, Fr. Francis S. Betten S.J. writes in his 1909 book, “The Roman Index of Forbidden Books – Briefly Explained for Catholic Booklovers and Students” that all of Dumas’ books were on the Index except “The Count of Monte Cristo.” [1]
With all this in mind, a thought had occurred to me. What if everything we’ve seen for the past 60 years from Vatican 2 and its popes were written as a work of fiction in the 1800’s? No doubt, the author would be condemned as an anti-Catholic and his work would be placed on the Index.
For example, imagine a work of fiction published in 1845 (the same year as “The Count of Monte Cristo) about a group of people that used an acronym to be identified in which all the letters meant some type of sexual deviancy and a Catholic priest notorious for helping them in their deviancy with a pope praising that priest in his work? How about a work of fiction about a series of popes who place notorious and open 33rd degree Freemasons in offices, asking a group of Protestants to help concoct a new mass, giving away the Papal Tiara to be auctioned off, and the Shepherd’s Crook and Fisherman’s Ring to be given to the head of the UN only to be sold to a Jewish businessman, abolishing the rite of Tonsure, all four Minor Orders, and the rank of Subdeaconate, giving the Standard of Lepanto back to the Muslims, removing many saints from the calendar claiming them to be dubiously existing, receiving blessings from shamans from all over the world, going into Lutheran churches to praise Luther and the “Reformation” and Mosques to pray with Muslims towards Mecca, invites all the religious leaders around the world to pray for world peace, one of those leaders being a Voodoo warlock who invites a goddess to possess him and Buddha being placed on an altar in front of a tabernacle, abolishing the death penalty as intrinsically evil, and declaring that God wills the diversity of religion and sex?
If such books of fiction were written in the 16th century, forget about the Index, you might be burned at the stake for sheer sacrilege and blasphemy.
The Vatican 2 religion is beyond what would be allowed to be read as a work of fiction in the past and rightly so. It would place evil ideas in the minds of Catholics. Yet, those evil ideas were actualized and put into practice and acknowledged as the Catholic Church today. It’s unbelievable! The Vatican 2 religion can’t possibly be the Catholic Church for this very reason. It’s the antithesis of Catholicism leading billions of souls to hell.
Movies are now the thing and many are based on famous books such as The Count of Monte Cristo. At one time, the Legion of Decency and the voice of Catholics kept the movie industry in check. The standard of morality was kept up by the Church.
What can be said of the Vatican 2 religion? They have become the main part of the problem today. Novus Ordo bishops and priests support immoral films and plays. Good examples include the Italian bishops defending the pedophile Netflix show “Cuties,” Rev. John Zuhlsdorf recommending several movies and videos with nudity, profanity and/or lewdness, and Novus Ordo deacon and movie reviewer Stephen Greydanus defending his review of a movie glorifying Sodomy. Where are the condemnations from all the other bishops? How about the Vatican? They’re all too busy worrying about saving the earth and getting along (as in tolerating evil as not that evil).
Not only do Novus Ordo so-called Catholics produce and support immoral movies but they support super immoral politicians and laws for their countries. It’s funny how the more conservative Novus Ordo and pseudo-traditionalist “Catholics” like to use the universal acceptance argument to prove that the Vatican 2 popes are true, but reject the same standard concerning everything else. Not only are they hypocrites of the highest order, but they even claim that the Catholic religion can be erroneous against the Faith in its non-dogmatic teachings and disciplines while denouncing as false other denominations for doing the same. It’s total and complete insanity!
Fr. Betten writes in chapter six of his important study about the duties of the Catholic Church and Catholics. It’s titled “Duties Imposed by Law and by Nature.” Unfortunately, the world and many of those who claim to be Catholic are too far gone, but we must listen and put into practice the following powerful words of Fr. Betten not only in books, but all other forms of media.
Fr. Betten: Suppose a person were so well grounded in faith and virtue, so thoroughly versed in theology, philosophy, and the natural sciences, that the reading of books e. g. on Christian Science, or the works of Voltaire, would not harm him. The Index prohibits these books; would he whom they could not harm be allowed to read them? As we put the case, he would, by reading them, not commit the sin of seriously endangering his soul. Yet he would sin by disregarding a positive law of the Church. These laws are like the precautionary measures taken by the civil authorities in times of epidemic; if they are to have the desired effect, they must be observed by all. When the community is under quarantine, those who declare themselves free from the disease must observe the regulations as well as the rest.
Let those who think they have a good reason for reading a forbidden book, and who are not mistaken in supposing that there is no danger for them, humbly ask for permission, as did the Saints. By doing so they declare that the standpoint of the Church is theirs, and that they willingly submit to a power which was entrusted with the care of “teaching to observe whatsoever I have commanded you.” “We have to develop a loving habit of loyalty and obedience to the Church as to Christ, our Savior.”
Suppose, on the other hand, there were no Church laws prohibiting pernicious reading. In that case should we be allowed to read any book we pleased? By no means. We should then, it is true, by reading, e. g., Zola’s novels, not commit an act of disobedience to the Church. But, as already hinted, there is another duty imposed on us by God Himself—the grave duty to guard our soul from serious danger. This duty does not depend on any positive law or decree of authority, and it equally binds the Christian and the non-Christian. It is expressed in the fifth commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” This duty corresponds on our part to what we ask of God in the sixth petition of the Our Father: “Lead us not into temptation.” We should undoubtedly violate it by reading Zola’s filthy works. The prohibition of these works by the Church merely adds another obligation to that imposed by the natural law, thereby considerably strengthening our will and enabling us to resist every enticement to read what can be read only at a serious risk to our soul.
This grave duty, therefore, is not imposed by the Church and cannot be taken away by the Church. It is a natural duty and as such remains in force even after we are granted a formal permission, which is neither intended nor able to suppress temptations that may arise from the perusal of bad books. If we have a good reason to apply for permission—curiosity is not a good reason—then and then only can we expect a special protection from Divine Providence. Of course, this protection does not dispense us from the necessity of using all the means of self-protection, both natural and supernatural.
I know of a priest who was in every way a model man. He fell suddenly away from the Church, married, and is now a foremost champion in the ranks of the enemy. His apostasy is, not without reason, attributed to the reading of infidel books, though no doubt he had the necessary dispensation.
There was another priest, who has meanwhile died the death of the just, a celebrated author and art critic. In writing a work on Voltaire he had to study the books of that arch-agnostic. He obtained the requisite permission, but, while perusing Voltaire’s writings, he was on his knees, to implore, as it were, by this humble posture the protection of God against the wicked influence to which he was exposed.
St. Francis of Sales, the great and learned Bishop of Geneva, had obtained permission to read the books of heretics in order to refute them, and he is careful to let his readers know the fact, at the same time thanking God in pathetic words that his soul had suffered no harm in so great a danger.
This grave natural duty in the choice of our reading matter extends much farther than the legislation of the Church. Parents and priests do not comply with their obligation of controlling the reading of their charges if they merely look up the Index to see whether a certain book is mentioned there. If an otherwise unobjectionable book contains an obscene passage of a page or so, no one will claim that it falls under the general law prohibiting obscene books. Nor is it likely to be put on the Index. Yet such a book is apt to work havoc in the innocent soul of your daughter or son, perhaps in your own. As long as that passage is in it, the book—even though it is not on the Index—cannot and must not, under pain of sin, be allowed in the hands of children.
Would that this twofold duty were always faithfully complied with, especially in our large cities, where books of every sort are within easy reach. Do not many, perhaps all, public libraries offer among other books such as are “derogatory to the Church, the hierarchy, the religious state,” and especially novels which “defend as lawful or tolerable, freemasonry, suicide, divorce”? How can we expect our young people to have Catholic views on courtship and marriage, on the priesthood, on the veneration of the saints, if we allow them to imbibe the ideas of such writers as Balzac or Dumas? It is deplorable enough that the modern novel is the catechism of millions outside of the Church. We must not allow it to displace the Catholic catechism or to unteach, totally or in part, the truths taught by it. [2]
Footnotes:
[1] The Roman Index of forbidden books (archive.org)
[2] Ibid. pp. 18-24
Speray's Catholicism in a Nutshell 