Q: Years ago I strayed from the Catholic Church when I got deceived by the New Age movement (which I deeply regret and have gone to confession for). I’m so grateful to have returned to my Catholic faith. During that period of my life, I acquired many books on New Age topics, and some of them are worth quite a bit of money. Is it a sin for me to sell these books if I am struggling financially and need the money? I’ve had one priest tell me that the books should be destroyed or thrown away. Another priest told me it’s OK to sell them, and that the most important thing is to get them out of my house. — M.A.
Answered by Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC:
It’s good to hear that you broke with the New Age movement.
New Age is a fuzzy term. Its range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs include transcendental meditation, reincarnation, the use of crystals, and occult ventures.
In Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II said of New Age, “It is only a new way of practicing gnosticism – that attitude of the spirit that, in the name of a profound knowledge of God, results in distorting His Word and replacing it with purely human words.”
Those books you have might lead other people into the same problem that you got into.
You don’t want to put someone else’s soul at risk. So, it might be good to take that first priest’s advice and destroy the books.
The fact that you need money wouldn’t justify putting someone at risk. A possible exception — a long shot — would be to sell them to a faithful Catholic scholar who was looking for New Age books as part of his academic research.
Otherwise, you won’t go wrong by ditching them — and relying on Our Lord to get you through your financial struggles.
