Monday, May 18, 2009

Moral Dilemma: Unorthodox books

What do you do with a book that corrupts the faith? I have some books (which I've spent varying amounts of money on) that I don't find useful to my spiritual growth. These are books meant to be Catholic but which do not accurately teach the faith. I'm not talking about books which have a small error in them, but books which purport to teach a particular author's or theologian's brand of Catholicism over and against so-called "institutional" Catholicism.

So what do I do with these books? I think it'd be quite wrong to sell them, because they might adversely affect future readers. I'd rather not simply trash them, but they are taking up precious space on my bookshelves!

What would you do?

3 comments:

Matt said...

This is a tough thing to deal with. I have dealt with this issue regarding my movie collection.

I came the conclusion that if I am only keeping them because of their monetary value then they aren't worth keeping.

They aren't going to be MY thirty pieces of silver...

So I say make the sacrifice and CHUCK THEM. It is a great penance. After all, you can't take them into the next life with you...

Jeffrey Pinyan said...

Yeah, throwing them out is one very likely course of action.

The other would take a bit of time: to go through them again and mark them up noting where they depart from the Catholic faith, by giving citations to the Catechism or other documents. Then sell or donate them, making sure the recipients know what they're getting!

It could be the start of an apostolate!

Adrienne said...

I throw such books away...