Article — Vermeersch, On Forbidden Books
Article 48
Those who, without the approval of the Ordinary, print books of the Sacred Scriptures or annotations or commentaries on the same, or cause them to be printed, fall by the fact itself into an excommunication reserved to no one.
Difference from the Tridentine censure
126. 1. Thus, by expressing it more clearly, the Tridentine excommunication is renewed,1 which nevertheless struck only anonymous books, while, according to interpreters of the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis (which confirmed the same censure), books which bear before themselves the name of the author are now also comprehended.
It is necessary only that the approval of the Ordinary was given
2. Without the approval of the Ordinary. It is enough, for escaping the censure, that it has been given, although perhaps not in writing nor appended in the book. And although regulars besides need the license of their Prelate, they do not commit the excommunication if the book is approved solely by the Ordinary of the place.
Who are printing?
3. Printing, in the present case, seem to be only those who either are owners of the typography or sustain their person, so that they conduct the matter in their name. For the Tridentine text in the cited place contains commands and penalties which cannot be accommodated to workers, etc. Cf. Pennacchi, Ballerini, Arndt,2 Hollweck,3 against Piat (on Van der Velden), p. 861.
Causing to be printed
4. Causing to be printed: as the editor of the book, he by whose care the book is printed; not necessarily the author, for example, if he merely gave or sold the manuscript, caring nothing for the printing.
Who absolves from this excommunication?
5. Excommunication reserved to no one. Therefore every Confessor can absolve from it, provided that contumacy has ceased.
1 Session 4 (Decree concerning the edition and use of sacred books). As Hollweck, Die Strafgesetze, etc., sec. 108, 1, wishes, also for this reason it is established a little more severely than in the Council of Trent, because the Tridentine decree did not clearly comprehend Sacred Scripture itself.
2 Avanz.-Penn., t. 2, appendix 38, p. 232; note 62 on Gury, II, 789; cited work, pp. 246, 247, n. 180.
3 Cited place. This sentence, which earlier, by I know not what law, R. D. Van Coillie, Collat. Brugg., p. 551, had accused of too much benignity, he sincerely confessed in the Commentary in this place to be sufficiently pleasing to himself.