Die Römische Zensur der Werke Cajetans und Contarinis (1558–1601)

Even cardinals were subject to Roman censorship as a means to facilitate Counter-Reformation and Catholic reform. Thus the works of the leading theologians Thomas de Vio Cajetan († 1534) and Gasparo Contarini († 1542) were "expurgated" (purged) after their deaths, that is they were adapted to the precepts of the Council of Trent and post-Tridentine Roman standards without unduly compromising the authority of the two cardinals.

The attempts to achieve this in the years 1558 to 1601 clearly reveal the limitations of the endeavour, which aimed at standardizing theology with confessionalization. Cajetan's critical exegesis and his occasional criticism of Thomas Aquinas, Contarini's "evangelism", and the biblical-patristic reform theology of Cardinal-designate Johannes Gropper (†1559) could only partly be "overcome" by expurgation. This work, the first reconstruction of their "cases" based on the Roman archival records, also provides deeper insight into the general institutional history of the Index and the Inquisition, with particular regard to the role played by the religious orders (especially the Dominicans) and formative individual personalities (such as Robert Bellarmine).

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Claus ARNOLD, Die Römische Zensur der Werke Cajetans und Contarinis (1558–1601). Grenzen der theologischen Konfessionalisierung, Paderborn et alibi 2008, 454 pages, hardcover, ISBN: 978-3-506-76437-9.