For four centuries, the Catholic Church banned the reading of hundreds of works deemed subversive—from Galileo Galilei to Simone de Beauvoir. Beginning in 1966, censorship was officially lifted, and popes increasingly valued reading as a spiritual and intellectual act. Francis’s pontificate marked a new era: it refocused the focus on reading as a tool of emancipation, far from any normative prescription.
For 400 years, the Catholic Church maintained the Index Librorum Prohibitorum , a long list of forbidden works . Conceived in the 16th century , it took shape under Pope Paul IV. His 1559 index included all books written by people considered heretics —anyone who deviated from dogma, in the broadest sense.
Even before the Index, Church leaders gave little consideration to freedom of thought. But in the decades before its creation, the Church hardened its stance in the face of new challenges: the rapid spread of printing and the Protestant Reformation.
The Catholic Counter-Reformation , formalized at the Council of Trent (1545–1563), reinforced dogmatism to counter the reformers. The council decreed that the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible, was sufficient to understand the Scriptures, making the study of the original Greek and Hebrew versions superfluous.
Bishops and the Vatican began compiling lists of works prohibited from printing and reading. Between 1571 and 1917, the Congregation of the Index, a special Vatican institution , examined writings and compiled lists of prohibited readings, approved by the Pope. Catholics who read these books risked excommunication.
Historian Jesús Martinez de Bujanda has compiled the most comprehensive list of books banned by the Church over the centuries. It includes astronomer Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei , as well as philosophers from every era, from Erasmus and René Descartes to feminist Simone de Beauvoir and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. Not to mention writers: Michel de Montaigne, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, David Hume, historian Edward Gibbon, and Gustave Flaubert. In short, the index is a who’s who of science, literature, and history.
In 1966, Pope Paul VI abolished the index . The Church can no longer punish the faithful for reading them , but still advises against them, as historian Paolo Sachet points out . The moral imperative not to read them persists.
However, the lines are gradually shifting. John Paul II and Benedict XVI are continuing to promote reading in a demanding manner, in the Christian tradition of dialogue between faith and reason.
John Paul II was passionate about theater and the “word,” which for him connected language, the divine, and faith. He also followed the humanists in a certain sense, discussing “the theology of the body,” the beauty and dignity of the human being. He wrote plays for sacred theater and translated Sophocles’ Oedipus the King into Polish. Benedict XVI, on the other hand , was above all a theologian. In his writings, he also approached literature as a path to the divine .
Pope Francis: A Love of the Humanities
With François, a notable shift takes place : while he does not break with his predecessors, he refocuses the view on reading as a personal experience, a tool for emancipation and openness to the world, far from any normative prescription.
On November 21, 2024 , for example, Francis published a letter emphasizing the importance of studying Church history—especially for priests, in order to better understand the world in which they live. For the Pope:
“Studying and telling history helps keep the ‘flame of collective consciousness’ alive.”
Francis advocates for an unfiltered, authentic study of church history, including its flaws. He emphasizes primary sources and encourages students to ask questions. Francis criticizes the idea that history is reduced to a chronology—rote learning without analyzing events. In 2024 , the pope calls on historians to free themselves from all ideology.
In 2019, Francis renamed the Vatican Secret Archives the Vatican Apostolic Archives. Although open to researchers since 1881, the term “secret” suggests something “reserved for a few,” he wrote.
During his pontificate, the Vatican opened the archives of Pius XII , allowing for the study of his actions during the Second World War, his knowledge of the Holocaust and his response to Nazi Germany.
In addition to his respect for history, the Pope emphasizes his love of reading. In a letter to future priests, published on July 17, 2024 , he writes:
“In reading, the reader is enriched by what he receives from the author, but at the same time it allows him to bring out the richness of his own person, so that each new work he reads renews and expands his personal universe.”
He continues by explaining that the “obsession” with screens, with their “poisonous, superficial, and violent fake news,” distracts us from literature. He shares his experience as a young Jesuit literature professor in Santa Fe, before adding a sentence that would have astounded the “index popes”:
“Of course, I’m not asking you to do the same readings as me. Everyone will find books that speak to their own life and that will become true companions on the journey .”
Quoting his compatriot, the novelist Jorge Luis Borges , Francis reminds Catholics that reading is:
“listening to the voice of another. […] We must never forget how dangerous it is to stop listening to the voices that challenge us!”
With Francis gone, the Vatican remains deeply divided between progressives and conservatives. While many modern democracies lean toward nationalism, fascism , and censorship , one of Pope Francis’s greatest achievements, in my view, has been his commitment to the humanities, with a deep understanding of the challenges it faces.
Author Bio: Joëlle Rollo-Koster is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Rhode Island
Tags: reading
