June 2000 - Nr. 6

Vatican Once Threatened to Ban Works of Karl May

TWIG - The Roman Catholic Church seems to have once harboured misgivings about the works of German writer Karl May (1842-1912). According to the newspaper Welt am Sonntag, the author of Germany’s most popular western series fell into disrepute within the Vatican after an anonymous German critic filed a report against him in 1910. The report took issue with images of a universal world religion portrayed by May in his later works.

May’s moment of notoriety was discovered recently by Frankfurt historian Hubert Wolf, director of the project "Roman Inquisition and Index" for the German Research Foundation. Wolf came across the papers on May’s case while working in the archives of the Vatican Religious Congregation, which administers the files of the Holy Roman Inquisition. The papers suggest the Vatican briefly considered adding May’s works to its index of forbidden literature, but decided not to for fear of boosting his popularity even further.

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