50 years ago this week, the Vatican's list of banned books was finally abolished by Pope Paul VI. The aim of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum was to protect the faith and morals of Catholics by preventing the reading of what the Church deemed to be heretical and immoral books. The final list reads as a who's who of some the greatest writers, philosophers and thinkers in Western culture. But religious censorship is not just part of the Christian story; it has been practiced in many societies and by many religions. Ernie Rea explores the relationship between religion and freedom of expression with Ed Condon, a canon lawyer and a writer for the Catholic Herald; Barry Kleinberg, a lecturer at the London School of Jewish Studies and an Orthodox Jew; and Khola Hassan, an Islamic scholar who sits on the Islamic Sharia Council for London.

Producer: Dan Tierney