Editing Index Librorum Prohibitorum (section)

===Continued moral obligation===
On 14 June 1966, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responded to inquiries it had received regarding the continued moral obligation concerning books that had been listed in the Index. The response spoke of the books as examples of books dangerous to faith and morals, all of which, not just those once included in the Index, should be avoided regardless of the absence of any written law against them. The Index, it said, retains its moral force "inasmuch as" ({{lang|la|quatenus}}) it teaches the conscience of Christians to beware, as required by the natural law itself, of writings that can endanger faith and morals, but it (the Index of Forbidden Books) no longer has the force of ecclesiastical law with the associated censures.<ref>"Haec S. Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei, facto verbo cum Beatissimo Patre, nuntiat Indicem suum vigorem moralem servare, quatenus Christifidelium conscientiam docet, ut ab illis scriptis, ipso iure naturali exigente, caveant, quae fidem ac bonos mores in discrimen adducere possint; eundem tamen non-amplius vim legis ecclesiasticae habere cum adiectis censuris" (''Acta Apostolicae Sedis'' 58 (1966), p. 445).  Cf. [http://cctld.it/storia/informazione/index/notificatio_14_6_66.pdf Italian text published, together with the Latin, on ''L'Osservatore Romano'' of 15 June 1966])</ref>

The congregation thus placed on the conscience of the individual Christian the responsibility to avoid all writings dangerous to faith and morals, while at the same time abolishing the previously existing ecclesiastical law and the relative censures,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=35670|title=Dictionary: POST LITTERAS APOSTOLICAS|website=www.catholicculture.org}}</ref> without thereby declaring that the books that had once been listed in the various editions of the Index of Prohibited Books had become free of error and danger.

In a letter of 31 January 1985 to Cardinal [[Giuseppe Siri]], regarding the book ''[[The Poem of the Man-God]]'', Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (then Prefect of the Congregation, who later became [[Pope Benedict XVI]]), referred to the 1966 notification of the Congregation as follows: "After the dissolution of the Index, when some people thought the printing and distribution of the work was permitted, people were reminded again in {{lang|it|[[L'Osservatore Romano]]}} (15 June 1966) that, as was published in the {{lang|la|[[Acta Apostolicae Sedis]]}} (1966), the Index retains its moral force despite its dissolution. A decision against distributing and recommending a work, which has not been condemned lightly, may be reversed, but only after profound changes that neutralize the harm which such a publication could bring forth among the ordinary faithful."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/poem_of_the_man.htm |title=Poem of the Man-God |website=EWTN |access-date=April 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303213410/http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/poem_of_the_man.htm |archive-date=3 March 2016}}</ref>