Fidelity & Editorial Policy
Bibliotheca Catholica is an independent index that intends to be faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. It points readers to the Church’s own documents, to the Fathers and Doctors, and to the great Catholic digital libraries.
Listing is not endorsement
The Isidore Index mirrors the catalogue of a third-party library, isidore.co, with its records imported as supplied. A book’s presence in the Index, in search results, or in the open data is not a recommendation, an endorsement, or a judgment that it is free of error. Our own recommendations are the hand-picked shelves: Discover & Read, Editions & Translations, and the Reading Lists.
Context notes on flagged records
Some records in the Index contain antisemitic conspiracy claims, conspiracy-theory history, or positions the Church does not accept, such as sedevacantism. We do not remove them: they remain available for historical study and research, and files stay on isidore.co. Instead, each flagged record carries a short, factual context note, this policy’s disclaimer, and a link back to this page. Flagged records are never featured on the home page, in reading lists, edition guides, or recommendations, or in the reading room, and their pages ask search engines not to index them.
Categories currently in use (54 records):
- Antisemitic content (19 records)
- Polemical history (conspiracy theory) (6 records)
- Sedevacantist position (5 records)
- Author context (24 records)
“Author context” marks other works by an author whose writing is flagged elsewhere; it is not a judgment that every such work contains the same claims.
Why we keep them, with this disclaimer
“The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power.”
“The inquiry is to be free, carried on with the aid of teaching or instruction, communication and dialogue, in the course of which men explain to one another the truth they have discovered, or think they have discovered, in order thus to assist one another in the quest for truth.”
Report a concern
If you think a record needs a context note, has the wrong one, or should not be listed, or if you hold the rights to a work and want a listing changed, write to micahwatson@bibliothecacatholica.com. Please include the book’s Index number or page link.
Privacy
This site uses Google Analytics on bibliothecacatholica.com (and www) only — preview and mirror hostnames such as pages.dev send nothing — to understand aggregate usage: which pages are visited, what people search for, which reading-room texts and sections are opened, when the Listen player or a LibriVox recording is opened and which audio chapters are played, which library filters are used, and which outside links are clicked. The site’s own link event records only the other site’s domain and a general kind, such as bookshop, affiliate (a referral link such as TAN Books’), publisher, newsletter, audio, official Church site, or text source. Google Analytics’ built-in outside-link and form measurements are switched off in our Google Analytics settings. If you arrive through a link tagged with campaign labels (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, or utm_content), whether they come before or after the # in the address, the first page view records those labels, each cut to 100 characters, and no other part of the address. Labels after the # are then removed from the address in your browser. The site’s own events shorten search terms to 100 characters and send them only with the search itself. Page views and other events record a fixed title and address such as /#/search or /#/isidore, never what you searched for or the filters you chose. Nothing else you type, including your highlights and notes, is sent. Google may set cookies in your browser to do this. The site itself has no accounts, collects no personal data such as your name, email address, or location, and runs no ads. See how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
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