Article 43

Let no book subject to ecclesiastical censure be printed unless at the beginning it displays the name and surname both of the author and of the editor, and in addition the place and year of printing and of edition. But if in some case, for just causes, the name of the author seems to have to be suppressed, let the power of permitting this be in the hands of the Ordinary.

Sum of the law

121. 1. A book which is subject to censure must display at the beginning the name and surname both of the author and of the editor, and the place and year of printing and of edition. Nevertheless the Ordinary will be able to permit that, for just causes, the name of the author be suppressed.

What concerning periodicals?

2. The sanction concerns books. Therefore, by positive law, nothing in itself is enacted concerning periodic publications.¹

Whether the author of the version is to be indicated?

3. Whose name must a version bear, that is, of the author of the original text, or of the interpreter? We judge that the name of either suffices.² For the letter wishes that the name of the author be manifested. Now, of a work which is rendered in another language, both he who conceived it in his mind, and that more properly, can be called the author; and the interpreter, insofar as the version is considered as another work, for which also a distinct approval is required. And this perhaps is more according to the mind of our Legislator.

Who is an editor?

4. Often by the name of editor we understand him at whose expense a book is printed. Properly, however, if we opine anything, by this word he is designated in whose name and by whose labor the book is edited, that is, spread abroad, diffused, made public. For the most part he will be the owner himself of the typography who undertook the work to be printed, and he will be another than the author. Yet if no typographer were the editor, why, as the distinguished Palmieri wishes in this place, an indication of the typographical office would be required, we do not clearly see. The words of the law do not require it. Nor, in order that in every case there be had some utility, especially a secondary one, intended by the Legislator, is it right in an odious matter to abandon the propriety of words. And do not books sometimes come forth which make mention only of the author, by this or a similar formula: "it is for sale at the author's"?

What if a society publishes a book?

5. What if a book is published not by a singular person, but by a society? Then it will be enough, for the end of the law, that an individual designation of the house be appended, for example, with the social name indicated, as we did for this work of ours. (La firme ou raison sociale.)

6. Observe that the place and year both of printing and of edition are to be expressed, namely, if the book has been printed in another place or year than it has been edited. This happens rather often concerning the place, sometimes also concerning the year, as if many thousands of copies, printed at one time, are destined for several editions. Cf. Pennacchi, cited work, n. 79.

What Ordinary gives the faculties here?

7. The Ordinary whose permission must be obtained for suppressing the name is he to whom, from article 35, the province of approving the book belongs; namely, in whose Diocese the work is made public. The same will be able, for similar causes, to permit that the book come forth under a feigned name (pseudonym).

¹ Cf. Wernz, who says this a little more moderately, and not altogether clearly, n. 121, note 112.

² With us Sleutjes, cited work, p. 54.