CHAPTER III: On Books to Be Subjected to Previous Censure

41. "All the faithful are held to subject to previous ecclesiastical censure at least those books which regard the divine Scriptures, sacred Theology, ecclesiastical History, Canon law, natural Theology, Ethics, or other religious or moral disciplines of this kind, and generally all writings in which religion and the honesty of morals is especially concerned."

It is said: 1. Are held; if therefore due license is omitted, the author sins; but the book is not prohibited, unless there is question of those which by the very fact of omitted approval are proscribed (cf. art. 7, 13, 20).

2. Generally all writings, and therefore also articles of newspapers in which religion and the honesty of morals is especially concerned, namely which have a moral or religious argument. Nevertheless some authors judge that the custom previously in force has not been abrogated, by force of which periodicals not explicitly treating of religion insert, without previous censure, articles which of themselves would have to be subjected to revision. Cf. Van Coillie, n. 69; Vermeersch, n. 118, p. 144.

From the Motu proprio Sacrorum Antistitum (A. A. S., II, p. 662) it is gathered that for periodicals a special censor, insofar as it can be done, must be designated.

Note. In the judgment of all, printed works and works to be issued lithographically or polygraphically, if they are made public and made of public law, are to be subjected to censure; but if they come forth only for the use of pupils or for another limited use, and are not placed in commerce, they are not liable to this censure; "which we know to have been approved by Roman practice itself," as Vermeersch testifies, p. 33. The reason of these things is because the license of the Bishop is not required precisely for this end, that the book can be printed, but that it can be made of public law. Therefore formularies of prayers for the use of a community, academic lectures for hearers, do not need episcopal censure (Linz. Quart. Schr., 1913, p. 488).

42. "Men from the secular clergy are not to publish even books which treat of merely natural arts and sciences without consulting their Ordinaries, that they may offer an example of an obedient mind toward them.

"The same are prohibited from taking up the direction of periodical sheets without previous permission of the Ordinaries."

The first part of this number is not only a recommendation; for (whatever Vermeersch may say, n. 119, p. 145) the S. C. of Extraordinary Affairs in its Instruction of 17 Jan. 1902 interpreted it thus: "Ecclesiastical men, according to the prescriptions of art. 42 of the same Constitution (Officiorum), must obtain the previous consent of the Ordinary for publishing writings which treat of merely natural arts and sciences." And our Most Holy Lord Pius X declared the same in his Motu proprio of the day 18 Dec. 1903. A. S. S., 36, p. 344. - The Motu proprio Sacrorum Antistitum, n. IV, commands the second part to be observed more diligently. Cf. A. A. S., II, p. 662.