In 1999, a reader of this web site sent me the following quotation which she had found posted on an online message board, and asked for my help in showing that it was a forgery.
In an address given by the College of Cardinals to Pope Pius III in 1503 we see what has become so obvious today. Following is an excerpt from the address:"Of all the advice that we can offer your Holiness we must open your eyes well and use all possible force in the matter, namely to permit the reading of the gospel as little as possible in all the countries under your jurisdiction. Let the very little part of the gospel suffice which is usually read in mass, and let no one be permitted to read more. So long as people will be content with the small amount, your interest will prosper; but as soon as the people want to read more, your interest will fail. The Bible is a book, which more than any other, has raised against us the tumults and tempests by which we have almost perished. In fact, if one compares the teaching of the Bible with what takes place in our churches, he will soon find discord, and will realize that our teachings are often different from the Bible, and oftener still, contrary.
The complete address by the Cardinals is preserved in the National Library in Paris, Folio No. 1068, Vol. 2, pp.650-651.
To show that it is a forgery, I gathered the following information:
A web search at the time yielded several links (now defunct). A version can be found in the July/August, 1999, newsletter of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries. (A query to the editor of the newsletter yielded no information about its provenance, just an assurance that it was legitimate.) A partial version can be found in the October, 1999, edition of The Gospel Message. A version appeared in 2000 on the Catholic information Network discussion board. A version in an article of uncertain date is posted on the web site of the Rice Road Church of Christ in Columbia, Missouri. The only printed version of this quote that I could find is from Facts For Roman Catholics, by Fabian S. Reinhart (1974). However, this small, privately published book is clearly derivative of other anti-Catholic works, but contains no bibliography.
While there is no "National Library in Paris," I presumed that this referred to the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF). With the assistance of a reference librarian at the BNF, I attempted to search their manuscript collection. However, the above reference does not correspond to their current catalog system for manuscripts: instead of size (folio), their catalog gives the language and then the number. In the French collection manuscript 1068 is Matieres pour discours de M. de Mesmes from the 17th century. In the Latin collection, manuscript 1068 is Diurnale ad usum ecclesiae Forojuliensis, and is contained in folio 94, oraisons en l'honneur de divers saints, from the 14th to 16th centuries. The manuscript comes from Peiresc, France.
A historian of the late medieval and early reformation period stated categorically that this quotation is a forgery. A historian of Catholicism in the 19th century told me that such forgeries were frequent in 19th century anti-Catholic tracts and periodicals.
Based on this information, I am confident that this quotation is a forgery, but I am still uncertain of its origin.