HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing.
Click here to check the list
Got me thinking. I avoid the Bookshop of the Sisters who, before feminism got them in its grip, were known as the Daughters of St Paul – they’re now going about the place calling themselves the Pauline Sisters. Anyway, I avoid their bookshop in Glasgow like the plague (well, the whole silly notion of freedom of speech and religious freedom almost got me arrested on one occasion, when a man who overheard my opinion about some of the heresy on sale there, asked the Sister who was trying not to listen to me, to call the police. I expect he’s an MP now. Goodness, between that and being banned from the Gonzaga Lectures, it’s a wonder I’ve managed to cling on to my good reputation…)
Like I say, though, the Human Events list got me thinking about the books which have influenced Catholics since Vatican II and which are proudly on sale in cathedrals, parishes and Pauline Bookshops around Scotland and the wider UK. Which of these books, I asked myself, would I identify as the most harmful? As a student teacher, I was exposed to modernists like Hans Kung and Edward Schillebeeckx whose respective writings on papal infallibility and the Eucharist, had us all debating the truth (or lack thereof) of Catholic doctrines on papal infallibilility and the Real Presence, would you believe. And parents wonder why children are not taught the Faith in Catholic schools! And bishops wonder why priests don’t want to be priests any more. Schillebeeckx was called to explain himself in December, so I’ve copied the following paragraph from the first obituary to show up on Google…
“When plans for the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) were announced, Schillebeeckx responded as coauthor of a statement, signed by the seven Dutch bishops, that anticipated virtually all the progressive changes that would come out of Vatican II on issues like liturgy, ecumenism and openness to other faiths and the encouragement of lay initiative. Although Schillebeeckx was not a peritus (expert) at the council, he worked closely with Utrecht Cardinal Bernard Alfrink and others to emphasize the collegial nature of the episcopacy, as a balance to papal infallibility pronounced at Vatican I (1869-70). The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church reflected his views on the subject. Also during the Second Vatican Council, Schillebeeckx joined with fellow theologians Hans Küng, Karl Rahner and Yves Congar in launching the theological journal Concilium.”
Off the top of my head, then, Kung and Schillebeeckx would be removed from the library of every seminary and teacher training college in the world, if it were up to me. Oh and I’d close down every Pauline Bookshop in aforementioned world, as well. I sure would. The police have quite enough to do, thank you very much.
What about you? Feel free to discuss the Human Events list, of course, but as well, it would be interesting to know which, if any, post-Vatican II literature you think has caused most harm, whether to bishops, priests, religious, laity, or all.
This is something we’ve never discussed before and we have our Torkay to thank for sending the link. So, a brand new topic to start a brand new year of blogging: think, research, stretch your mind – enjoy!