Article — Vermeersch, On Forbidden Books
Article 34
Vicars and Apostolic Missionaries should faithfully observe the Decrees of the sacred Congregation set over the Propagation of the Faith concerning books to be published.
Apostolic Vicars, who they are
109. 1. Apostolic Vicars, as we take them here, are ecclesiastical Prelates, for the most part distinguished by the episcopal character, who in places of missions, in the name of the Supreme Pontiff, shepherd a region where the ordinary hierarchy has not yet been introduced. They are subject to the authority of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide.
Apostolic Missionaries, who they are
2. Apostolic Missionaries are not those Priests who, for the sake of honor and privilege, are decorated with this title by the Holy See even in our regions; but, says Pennacchi,1 they are those Priests who, approved by the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, dwell in the aforesaid places (of Missions), and there exercise their ministry under the authority of Apostolic Vicars.
Prohibition made for Missionaries. Apostolic Missionaries
3. The decrees of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide remain to be observed, insofar as they are in use today.2
Now, from those decrees, Apostolic Missionaries are prohibited from publishing any writings whatever or books (both their own and others', both by themselves and through others), whether treating of religion directly or indirectly, or discoursing on ecclesiastical matters, unless by previous examination and approval of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, to be obtained in writing and printed at the beginning of the work itself.
Nevertheless the respective Bishops or Apostolic Vicars can permit small doctrinal works, catechisms, instructions, and prayers to be published, which serve the daily use of the faithful.
Sometimes, by special Indults, they obtain greater faculties.
These things are drawn out from various Decrees of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, especially those which are reported in Coll. P. F., nn. 1869, 1870, 1872.
What concerning books, periodicals, which report letters of Missionaries
4. From the former law, all books treating of the sacred missions were to be approved by the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide. But if even before merely historical or geographical reports, taken, for example, from letters of missionaries, were published without penalty without the faculty of that Congregation,3 that will much less have to be reputed illicit today. Reports of this sort, or books "concerning knowledge which in no way refers to religion," Pennacchi4 excepts even from the law which regards Apostolic Missionaries.
What concerning the Bishops of these regions
5. You will ask why the Bishops of regions which are subject to Propaganda Fide have been passed over in silence. Thus England, Holland, the Indies, etc.?
C. Gennari5 and Pennacchi6 judge that those special laws are not in force in places in which the ordinary hierarchy has been restored. And that the matter stands thus in several regions is true. In all? We think that the Bishops of those places must consider the received usages and the proper Instructions which they have received from Propaganda Fide.7
1 Cited work, n. 71. Palmieri proves the same in this place.
2 Wernz, n. 121, note 101.
3 Cf. Arndt, p. 277, n. 198.
4 Cited work, n. 71.
5 Monit., cited place, p. 108.
6 A. S. S., cited place, n. 71, p. 490.
7 Thus also Ciolli, n. 82. Wernz, note 101, distinguishes regions which are merely subject to the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, as Holland, England, etc., from regions which are still counted among the lands of infidels, although the ordinary hierarchy has been established there. He warns the Bishops of these latter regions that they should act cautiously.