Should I dare to read this?

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This isn’t a question I would normally hang out for anyone to read. I am usually pretty good about discriminating and discerning about the spiritual reading material I read. This new book I just purchased titled Apparitions, Healings, and Weeping Madonnas Chritianity and the Paranormal by Lisa J. Schwebel isn’t exactly what I was expecting. As I flip through the book I see that Karl Rahner is quoted heavily throughout. Should Catholics read anything written by dissenters or filled with quotations of dissenters of the Church? What is the word on this subject these days. Are there guidelines?
 
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SeanMc:
Here’s a review: americamagazine.org/BookReview.cfm?textID=3603&articletypeid=31&issueID=485

From the review, its seems that its a scientific analysis, rather than an occult book.

Anyway, it’s your choice; the Index of Forbidden Books was done aways with long (relatively) ago.
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ewtn.com/expert/expertfaqframe.asp?source=/vexperts/conference.htm

In 1966 when the Index was abolished many thought this meant the works listed on it could be read. Cardinal Ratzinger addressed this issue with respect to the “Poem of the Man-God,” in the aforementioned Letter saying,

“After the dissolution of the Index, when some people thought the printing and distribution of the work was permitted, people were reminded again in ‘LOsservatore Romano’ (June 15, 1966) that, as was published in the ‘Acta Apostolicae Sedis’ (1966), the Index retains its moral force despite its dissolution. A decision against distributing and recommending a work, which has not beeen 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.”
 
Contemplative I also was disapointed when I purchased this book. It was not at all what I expected.
 
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contemplative:
This isn’t a question I would normally hang out for anyone to read. I am usually pretty good about discriminating and discerning about the spiritual reading material I read. This new book I just purchased titled Apparitions, Healings, and Weeping Madonnas Chritianity and the Paranormal by Lisa J. Schwebel isn’t exactly what I was expecting. As I flip through the book I see that Karl Rahner is quoted heavily throughout. Should Catholics read anything written by dissenters or filled with quotations of dissenters of the Church? What is the word on this subject these days. Are there guidelines?
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If every author who quotes Rahner were to be off-limits to Catholics, no Catholic would read anything by the present Pope. Who is also far from dismissive of Luther. I suppose that makes B16 a raving “liberal” :rolleyes: 😃​

St. Thomas Aquinas quotes heretics, heathens, Muslims and Jews: no self-respecting CAF “true Catholic” should read someone so “liberal”. 🙂 Or the Fathers - they constantly quote heathens. Or Trent: it relied on Orthodox theology for some of its doctrine. Cyril of Alexandria’s Christology is indebted to that of a heretic. St. Augustine was pretty controversial in his day - I suppose that means an end of Catholics’ reading him. 🙂

Seriously - if only authors who never quoted anything by a heathen, heretic, schismatic, Jew or Muslim, were to be allowed to Catholics, very little - if anything - would be left. If all authors quoted by heretics, heathens, Jews etc., were to be ignored, we would have to forget about reading the Bible, St.Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Augustine, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and just about every other Father. And St. Thomas - how many Catholics know there have been Anglican Thomists ?

Not everything said by a non-Catholic is from the pit of Hell - far less everything said by a Catholic theologian, such as Rahner was. Like any author, he should be read with an alert mind; not utterly trashed because of an opinion here and there to which exception might be taken. ##
 
I did not K. Rahner was declared a heretic? I know his works did draw criticism, such as his “Anonymous Christian” when dealing with non-Christian Religions, but I never thought he was declared a heretic and as seems to be implied with the title heretic excommunicated from the Church. And one final note, St. Thomas Aquinas rejected the belief in the Immaculate Conception - I guess that means no more Thomas?
 
I think I remember hearing about that, and that it was just a rumor or misunderstanding. Sorry I can’t go deeper into why, I never really got into it.
 
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