“The faithful throughout the world are under obligations to accept the authority of the censorship tribunals, the Inquisition and the Congregation of the Index, not only in regard to the prohibition of the use of prohibited books but also with reference to the conclusions reached by these censors concerning the soundness of doctrine or general fitness for devout reading of the literature contained in such books.... The history of the Church has secured for the wisdom of the work of the censorship authorities an assured, even a brilliant confirmation.” “The only utterance,” continues this writer, “in which the Congregation of the Index can be convicted of a serious or decisive error of judgment is that of the decree issued in 1616 against the writings of Copernicus.... While the history makes clear (what in fact no one has ever denied) that the Roman Congregations are in their judgments not infallible, the evidence is overwhelming as to the wisdom and effectiveness with which the work of these scholarly and devout censors has been carried on through the centuries; and it would be an act of very gross presumption for individual believers to undertake to question the validity and substantial value of their conclusions.” In 1865, an article in the official _Civiltà Cattolica_[170] in regard to a treatise of the Bishop of Treviso, says: “The infallibility of a prohibition or condemnation of a book which has been expressed through a papal Bull, a papal brief, or under a decree of the Congregation which has been issued under specific instructions from the pope, cannot be questioned. The ordinary decrees of the Congregation cannot be said to possess the same full measure of infallibility as these rest not upon the direct authority of the pope but merely upon the general authority under which the Congregation has been constituted. A book that has been condemned by the Congregation must, however, be considered as having been condemned by the Church of which the Congregation is for this purpose the authorised representative.”