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Stephen Adams wrote:

>I'm not Matthew, but the answer is, catholic yes, Roman, no. The
>books of the OT that Protestants call "Apocrypha" or
"Deuterocanonical"
>are accepted by the vast majority of Christians in the world, Roman
>Catholic & Orthodox. The books were removed by the radical reformers.


Well here's some arguments against their inclusion in the canon:

While in some cases they have certain historical value, any claim for
canonicity on the part of these writings is without any solid
foundation. The evidence points to a closing of the Hebrew canon
following the writing of the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi in
the fifth century B.C.E. The Apocryphal writings were never included in
the Jewish canon of inspired Scriptures and do not form part of it
today.

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus shows the recognition given
only to those few books (of the Hebrew canon) viewed as sacred,
stating:

"We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with
each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two
and twenty [the equivalent of the 39 books of the Hebrew Scriptures
according to modern division], and contain the record of all time."
He thereafter clearly shows an awareness of the existence of Apocryphal
books and their exclusion from the Hebrew canon by adding: "From
Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written, but
has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records,
because of the failure of the exact succession of the
prophets."-Against Apion, I, 38, 41 (8).

As reagrds their inclusion in "Septuagint." Arguments in favor of
the canonicity of the writings generally revolve around the fact that
these Apocryphal writings are to be found in many early copies of the
Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which
translation was begun in Egypt about 280 B.C.E. However, since no
original copies of the Septuagint are extant, it cannot be stated
categorically that the Apocryphal books were originally included in
that work. Many, perhaps most, of the Apocryphal writings were
admittedly written after the commencement of the translation work of
the Septuagint and so were obviously not on the original list of books
selected for translation by the translating body. At best, then, they
could rate only as accretions to that work.

Additionally, while the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria eventually
inserted such Apocryphal writings into the Greek Septuagint and
apparently viewed them as part of an enlarged canon of sacred writings,
the statement by Josephus quoted earlier shows that they were never
brought into the Jerusalem o