Article 18

In authentic editions of the Missal, Breviary, Ritual, Ceremonial of Bishops, Roman Pontifical, and other liturgical books approved by the Holy Apostolic See, let no one presume to change anything: if otherwise it has been done, these new editions are prohibited.

What an authentic edition is

88. 1. An authentic edition is that which the public authority, which here is the Holy See, so approves that it in some manner makes it its own. Thus the obvious sense, thus the common signification of authenticity, thus all interpreters of this Constitution whom we have seen. Therefore it designates that typical exemplar, prepared according to the norms of the Constitutions of the Supreme Pontiffs, and which other editions must imitate; in other words, "the original taken from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, or the authentic exemplar of the Cameral printing office, signed by the hand of the Secretary of the same Sacred Congregation and sealed with its seal."¹ Therefore a license of publishing given by the Ordinary, and testimony of conformity with the typical exemplar, does not suffice to confer authenticity on liturgical books.

But because it is repugnant that the same edition be at once authentic and corrupt, the words in authentic editions sound the same as: in the authentic text, or also: in books of which an authentic edition exists, and which are destined for liturgical use.

Other liturgical books. Concerning Euchologia

2. Other liturgical books are, for example, the Day Hours, the Offices of Holy Week, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, etc. Yet books of private devotion are not reputed liturgical in which, for the convenience of the faithful, certain parts of the Missal or Breviary are contained together with various other prayers. Wherefore, while the prior law was still in force, Euchologia which exhibited the Ordinary of the Mass, Sunday Vespers, the Office of the Dead, commonly used to report only the common approbation. These are governed by article 20.

What change is treated

3. The change of which there is question in the article is not made in the authentic exemplar itself, but, as is said at the end of the article, in new editions which disagree with the authentic one, and which certainly will not be authentic. Thus altogether Palmieri on this place.

And because the text is: "let no one presume to change anything," at the same time, on the one hand, even slight changes are attended to;² on the other hand involuntary "errata" are excused.³

Yet the authentic text is not judged changed because in a new edition, in their proper places, more things are extended and repeated than in the authentic one for the convenience of users.

What of chant?

Come now: by the motu proprio of April 25, 1904, that conformity, in the manner which will be proposed below in the appendix, must also be urged with respect to chant, so that no one can now approve liturgical books which contain chant differing from the typical edition. Cf. below, the appendix.

Sanction of prohibition

4. If otherwise it has been done, these new editions are prohibited. Those words, set forth simply, must be taken in the sense which we explained above. Therefore we are prohibited not only from liturgical use, or from paying the canonical hours from an edition of this sort, but also from simple reading, retention, etc.

What, if editions are conforming?

But if they have been new editions conforming to the typical exemplar, by the obvious sense itself we are taught that those books can be used, at least for private use.

With regard to private use

Yet they must be marked with the approval of the Ordinary, not to be conceded unless there is certainty concerning that conformity.

For although, on account of the special mention which is made of them in this article 18, you should be unwilling to place them in the genus of practical books of devotion, concerning which in article 20, nevertheless they cannot escape the force of article 41, which makes all writings in which religion is specially interested subject to previous censure, and of article 44, by which new editions of a work subject to previous censure must be approved. And indeed a liturgical book is so subject to censure that the typical exemplar cannot be published except by authority of the Sacred Congregation of Rites.⁴ Thus far concerning private use.

With regard to liturgical use

But it is less established whether the same can be said concerning the liturgical use⁵ of those books; or whether, on the contrary, in this part the sanctions of prior law have force.

For from prior law,⁶ the use of Missals, Breviaries, and parts taken from the Breviary was forbidden when they were published without a faculty to be obtained in writing, in the City from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and outside the City (if an Inquisitor was lacking) from the Ordinary of the place. Moreover, the faculty had to make mention of a diligent comparison with the typical exemplar, and of the conformity found between each; and it had to be printed at the beginning or end of the book.

Moreover, for the more benign solution, which contends that even liturgical use is governed by this our Constitution, these things make:

a) Those books are not morally accustomed to have any other use than liturgical use. Therefore both the inscription of chapter VII, which, besides, distinguishes liturgical and prayer books, and the present article 18 chiefly intend this use. But this having been set down, unless you wish to accuse our Legislator of lack of skill, who, while he thinks to furnish to all rules clear and easy to know, would have handed down in this part only a maimed and imperfect law, which would have to be laboriously supplied from various Bulls and Decrees; unless, I say, you should opine so absurdly, you will have to say that the preceding Constitutions on the same matter, which is admitted to be touched of set purpose by the Constitution of Leo XIII, are antiquated.

b) To this, finally, practically looks the abolition of that law: that the special solemnities of approval which we have just recalled could now be passed over.⁷ But in this there is nothing inconvenient, nothing exorbitant, since today the Ordinary can easily compare a new edition with a genuine one. But it plainly accords with the character of the present law that the forms to be observed be rendered more simple.⁸

c) A way seems to have been prepared for this more benign law by decrees⁹ which began to prohibit less strictly the use of liturgical books which lacked formal approval.

d) Finally, very learned men defend this opinion as certain: C. Gennari,¹⁰ Planchard,¹¹ Pennacchi.¹²

Yet are these reasons such as make plainly improbable the manner of thinking of others, who think that the Constitutions of Urban VIII still have force? We by no means think so, provided they wish to contract the force of their opinion to liturgical use.

For the Constitutions praised above were written to take care lest the formula of praying and offering sacrifice which the Church uses be corrupted. Therefore someone could think that they proscribed editions destitute of certain solemnities merely in order to liturgical use.¹³

But then they would already seem to handle another subject than our Constitution, which concerns the prohibition and censure of books in general, and not the moderating of a particular use of certain books. Nor would they necessarily be weakened by the clause by which Leo XIII suppresses any other command of the Supreme Pontiffs concerning this matter (that is, concerning the object of the new Constitution). Indeed, as much as it is permitted to a private writer to conjecture these things, it seems sufficiently likely that the Sacred Congregation of Rites, if questioned concerning this doubt, would accommodate its response to this latter opinion.¹⁴

What if you recite from a prohibited edition

What if you recite the Breviary by using a prohibited edition? Since a sanction which the law has not expressed is not to be introduced, you seem to recite validly, or to satisfy the obligation, provided you recite according to the prescribed form. Cf. Monitore, VIII, 2, p. 209. For the use of an approved Breviary does not pertain to the intrinsic reason of the obligatory manner, since you can pay the Hours from memory.

Nor does that use of a Breviary not approved, provided you recite the prescribed prayers and all contempt is absent, seem to introduce grave sin, by which even vocal prayer would perish.

¹ Dilgskron, Anal. Eccl., 1897, p. 87, at the end.

² Pennacchi, cited work, n. 56.

³ The Sacred Congregation of Rites admits that errors have crept even into some editions of the City, April 26, 1834 (Collect. Prop. Fid., n. 1875).

⁴ Therefore we can by no means agree with the doctrine of the distinguished Pennacchi, n. 56, according to which those new editions would no longer require any previous license. We think this is sufficiently clear from the reasons given. Nor is this a gratuitous assertion, as Ephem. Liturg., 1898, p. 534, object. Cf. also Wernz, n. 111, note 72. But how the General of the Order of Carmelites of the ancient observance could publish his proper Ritual, cf. response of May 24, 1905, Periodica Nostra, n. 76, t. 2, pp. 14 and 16.

⁵ By which formula we also include the recitation of the Breviary prescribed for ministers of the Church.

⁶ For Breviaries and parts taken from it, this is established from the Constitution Divinam Psalmodiam of Urban VIII, January 25, 1631; for Missals, from the Constitution Si quid est of the same Pontiff, September 2, 1634.

⁷ No small praise of the present Constitution is that wise discretion, by which, from the suppressed General Decrees (which were set before the catalogue of the Index before the Mandate of Leo XIII), it retained some things, but omitted others which today are less opportune, or of which express mention has already become superfluous. Thus, for example, in place of the eight articles of § IV, articles 13 and 18 of our Constitution were substituted, which seem plainly to suffice for the intent. For controversies concerning Chinese rites, of which six articles treated, are today quieted, so that they do not need a special sanction. But as regards new Blessings, formulas of Exorcisms, and Rosaries, concerning which articles 1, 4, 8 treated: they can be considered as public rites or private devotions. Under the first aspect, it is sufficiently established today that sacred rites are a greater cause devolved exclusively to the Holy See. Therefore a special caution concerning them is no more desired than it ought to be expressly provided lest some private person found right or law in the Church. Under the other respect, they would be new devotions, which are governed by article 13. Therefore we can with impunity abstain from sayings too foreign in law, by which, for example, those things which Leo XIII abrogates in express words are said to have force because of a decree, and that one preceding in time, of the Sacred Congregation. We grieve that this was proposed in the excellent Ephemerides Liturgicae (1898), p. 583: "The conclusions brought in ...," so they say, "we inserted; because they are read in § IV of the Decrees of the Index, and therefore they were abrogated, and nevertheless by force of the Constitutions or Decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, they still have force." At the same time it appears that with no difficulty the strange consequences which are objected against the benign opinion of which in the text are avoided. Let it be lawful for us, with esteem for them preserved and from zeal for truth, to note these things in response to the most humane response which, pp. 521-534, the Ephemerides Liturgicae gave to the second of the two notes by which, in the second edition, pp. 71, 72, we had disapproved their manner of speaking.

⁸ Dilgskron, Anal. Eccl., 1897, p. 228.

⁹ Cf. Sacred Congregation of Rites, General Decree, April 26, 1834 (Decr. auth., n. 2716), inculcated again February 18, 1843 (Decr. auth., n. 2855), and a third time February 27, 1847 (Gardellini, n. 5066), and the Council of Avignon, title I, chapter 6, which Lehmk., II, 232, reports.

¹⁰ Monit., cited place, X, pp. 67, 68.

¹¹ Rev. Th. Fr., cited place, n. 65.

¹² A. S. S., cited place, n. 56, p. 338.

¹³ Therefore let the Ephemerides Liturgicae note again that we turn these things over with a mind not preoccupied, and that we oppose their conclusion less than their arguments.

¹⁴ Yet it could deservedly be objected that in the Constitution Quamvis of Urban VIII (June 16, 1634), Pontificals which are published without special faculty, etc., are prohibited in absolute words. But that in the most recent Collection of Rites there are inserted Decrees which refer to prior law by no means proves that those dispositions still have force. For there are several utilities of that insertion, even if some parts have been antiquated. Nor was there so much care in arranging that Collection that you could borrow a certain argument from the same.