The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 2 (of 2)Putnam, George Haven
History
The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 2 (of 2)
Putnam, George Haven
Freedom of the press; Liberty of conscience; Prohibited books
In 1739, after the publication of the Bull of Clement XII, the
Inquisition prohibited the _Relation apologétique et historique de
la société des Francs-Maçons_, by J. G. D., F. D., Dublin, 1738.
In the same year, Crudeli was imprisoned by the Inquisition on the
charge that he was a freemason, that he had ridiculed or scoffed at the
Madonna of Saint Cresci, and that he had read prohibited books. He was
sentenced to confinement for one year with the penance of praying from
day to day the seven Penitential Psalms.
In 1789, the necromancer, Cagliostro, was imprisoned under the orders
of the Inquisition. In April, 1791, the Inquisition issued a judgment
arrived at in a session at which the pope presided, declaring that
Cagliostro had fallen under the penalties adjudged by canon law, and
also by municipal law, against heretics, heresiarchs, astrologers,
magicians, and freemasons. The pope decided, as a special grace,
to restrict the punishment to a life-long imprisonment, under the
condition however that he should abjure his heresies. Cagliostro died
in prison in 1795. His collection of books and instruments was publicly
burned. The destruction included a manuscript in which the Inquisition
was declared to have made the Christian religion superstitious,
godless, and degrading. A work of Cagliostro’s, apparently also left
only in the form of manuscript, bearing the title _Maçonnerie
Egyptienne_, was in April, 1791, placed in the Index. The Spanish
Index of 1789 prohibits the _Mémoires Authentiques de Cagliostro_
by Beam, published in Hamburg, in 1786.
In 1836, the Congregation prohibits various histories and treatises on
freemasonry published during the preceding three years in Paris and in
Brussels. In 1820, was prohibited a treatise published in Madrid giving
an account of the persecution of the freemasons under Clement XII and
Benedict XIV. In 1846, was prohibited by the Inquisition a history of
freemasonry published anonymously in Madrid.
In 1880, the Congregation prohibited a treatise by Falcioni, _Coup
d’oeil sur le Christianisme, par un Franc-Maçon, Disciple de la
Philosophie Positive_. Falcioni had been secretary of the Pontifical
chapel. His book had been published in Paris in 1879.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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