Importance Of Censura Librorum

The invention of reading and writing created a mean of communication that allowed anyone to send any message to masses of people. The problem was that when this capability got into the wrong hands, the wrong message can be sent to the public. This is why those who are in power must take it upon themselves to control who is allowed to harness this technology and what is allowed to be written. The term “censura librorum” is a term used by the Catholic Church for the act of having religious officials review already published works and/or teachings. Their reason for doing this being that they want to “protect subjects from the ravages of a pernicious press” (Hilgers). There is a famous quote by Walter Benjamin which states that “History is written …show more content…
When a book was deemed acceptable by the church, it was given the status of “imprimatur”, which means to let it be printed. This declaration was usually only given to books based on religion from a catholic perspective. A book that did not meet the specific requirements expected by the Catholic Church could not be published until changed to fit their requirements. If the church can control what is massively produced, they can control what is massively seen by the general public. They used this power to subdue the beliefs they do not agree with in order to ensure there are not any “malicious” ideas being shared which could hurt their …show more content…
Excommunication does not necessarily mean that said person will no longer be able to go to heaven but that they cannot participate in church activities. A person can still regain this ability if they repent for what they did wrong. In the realm of censorship, person who stands to share an idea such that does not conform to Catholic values, will be excommunicated until they stop attempting to do so. Depending on the gravity of the situation, one can even be dealt with in more brutal terms such as torture and death. An example of this is Galileo. For his support of heliocentrism; he was convicted of heresy, his books were banned, and he was told to stop defending his ideas (Tolbert 99). The suppression of people and their ideas played a major part in the censorship and control of their subjects.

In the 1560s, Catholic priests and conquistadors destroyed the books written by indigenous peoples in the Americas on a large scale level. They did this because they found because they deemed the works to be superstitious and the lies of the devil. Even though they could not read what was written; they destroyed it on the basis that it was not approved by the Church. This ideology of theirs can also be extrapolated and seen in Europe. Pieces that are considered evil can very much so also be destroyed in the Church 's