Does Boettner advocate freedom for freedom’s sake? Freedom is a
gift given by God to use in the service of truth and goodness.
Freedom used to vainly read heretical or immoral material is
freedom abused, not used.
What proof is there that the Catholic Church employed the Index
only “on the pretense of shielding them from error”? This
unsubstantiated claim by Boettner is another example of wishful
thinking on his part.
What “liberal and Protestant ideas” would Boettner like Catholics
to be exposed to? Would Boettner encourage Protestant views
opposed to his own? And when did Christ advocate so-called
“liberal” views?
Many of the “liberal” views condemned in the Index are expounded
by authors unfriendly not only to the Catholic Church but also to
Christianity per se. Would Boettner promote the atheistic views of
Rousseau, Voltaire or Zola to his congregation simply in the name
of liberalism?
The current degenerate moral condition of the world is due in part to the
abolition of censorship laws by the governments of the Western world. No
person in good faith can contest in principle the need for a return to laws
restricting the levels of violence and vulgarity, the blasphemy and erotica
that have flooded society and which are aimed particularly at the young.
Should it be any surprise that while censorship has virtually vanished, the
levels of sexual promiscuity, marriage and family breakdowns, drug use,
violence and rebellion has simultaneously skyrocketed, while religious
practice has plummeted? Nor is the publication of hundreds of millions of
items of literature by tens of thousands of conflicting and contradictory
Protestant churches objectively satisfactory. The Church in her wisdom
knew that steps were necessary centuries ago to stem the tide of dangerous
literature. Far from being free from “ignorance and superstition,” the
Western world has collectively extinguished its own light of reason and is
now going down a revolutionary process of self-destruction. If the
Church’s policy concerning censorship overall and the Index in particular
were successful, the world would not be in the sorry state it is in today.
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