I. On Perfect Prohibition

Defense of the book is prohibited

47. I. 1. In the first place, we are prohibited from defending a book that has been simply reproved.

For this defense contains a certain rebellion against legitimate authority, whose act it strives either to impede or to render less effective.

Publication, reading, keeping

2. That book can neither be published, nor read, nor retained. For to this already formerly pertained the simple prohibition of a book. Then, in article 12 of the Constitution Officiorum, these three words, publish, read, retain, are used in place of the word prohibition, which alone is used elsewhere. Finally, as often as a book is placed in the Index, we are taught the same thing. For the customary clause thus states: "Therefore let no one, of whatever rank and condition, dare in any place and in any language, either in future to publish, or to read or retain when published, the aforesaid condemned and proscribed work."

What of selling, of renting

3. To these acts neither the selling nor the renting of a book, or lending it, are added by positive law, if you except the precept which article 46 of the Constitution Officiorum directs to sellers of books.¹ Therefore, with this disposition excepted, which will be explained in its proper place, those acts are governed by the natural law, by which they are not rarely forbidden, either of themselves or consequently upon the positive prohibition of the book.²

II. It remains that the individual acts be explained in a few words.³

¹ You will say: Is not the lending of a book itself prohibited at the end of article 26? By no means, since in the said article there is merely recalled the precept which is contained in the clauses of the faculty by which permission is granted to read and retain prohibited books. Those who obtain this are generally ordered to keep books in such a way that they do not come into the hands of others.

² Cf. Cardinal de Lugo, De Fide, disp. 21, from n. 71.

³ When they can be excused, cf. below, nn. 58, 59.

What defense is

48. 1. Defense of a book occurs both physically, by rescuing the book or material volume from destruction, from being handed over to superiors, etc.; and morally, by defending it in speech or writing, either absolutely or insofar as it gives occasion to the prohibition.¹ But he does not defend an evil work who praises only the innocent part, or even the style, etc., "provided it does not imply praise or approval of the book." Lugo, De Fide, disp. 21, n. 94.²

¹ By the word defend, "defense both of right and of fact is imported." Barbosa, Dictiones usu frequentes, dict. 81, n. 4.

² Cf. Lehmkuhl, II, 924; Arndt, op. cit., p. 240; Hollweck, p. 26; Cardinal Gennari, Monitore, loc. cit., p. 145.

Publication

49. 2. He publishes a book who takes care that the book be published and disseminated. Such is the publisher strictly so called, and generally the writer or author. For by the common labor of both, a book is accustomed to come into the light. Yet this is not necessary. For works are published against the will of the writer, or without his knowledge, or after he has died. But in order that he himself may be said to have assumed the role of publisher, it is necessary that, for this end of publishing the work, he have handed over the book written by himself.

Moreover, the publication of an evil book is intrinsically evil.

Cooperators

Several can furnish cooperation to those publishing a book, whether formal, which necessarily shares in the evil of the publication, or material, and that either proximate or remote. Only from most grave necessity can proximate cooperation be justified; the other is excused by a grave inconvenience.

First, the printer, distinct from the publisher, who has undertaken the work to be printed, cooperates proximately with the publisher.

And he is very often a formal cooperator. Yet his act of printing is not intrinsically evil.¹ Therefore, in a certain case of avoiding an extreme evil, his material cooperation could be excused.

Next, among proximate cooperators are to be numbered those among whom evil works are available for sale to all, or for renting, or who sell them through the streets. Therefore only a nearly extreme necessity will excuse these until they can provide for themselves otherwise.

Theologians were accustomed, rather acutely, to distinguish even among workers those who cooperate proximately - those who set the type, ink it, place the paper on the type, turn the press² - from those who cooperate only remotely - those who prepare the paper, arrange the books already printed, apply fire to the machine. Yet if you observe that the publication of a work is distinguished from its printing and sometimes is entirely separated from it, you will rather easily agree with those who today no longer impute anything but remote cooperation to workers.³

Moreover, this cooperation has various degrees of proximity, and certainly in him who is the "sub-manager" of the inner workshop (chef d'atelier) it approaches very closely to proximate cooperation. Now the more proximate the cooperation you have exhibited, the more difficultly you will be excused.

¹ Cf. Laymann, Theologia moralis, book 2, treatise 3, chapter 13, n. 5; Villada, n. 21.

² Cf. D'Annibale, vol. 3, n. 142 and note 19. By most writers, among remote cooperators are placed those who correct the printed matter; yet those correctors at the same time read the work.

³ Konings, I, 315; Hollweck, Die kirchlichen Strafgesetze, section 107, 5.

Who formally read

50. 3. They read, not those who merely hear someone reading,¹ or recite from memory, or, ignorant of the language, materially run their eyes over a passage, but those who perceive with their eyes, understanding the things which are written.

¹ And this probably even if they have induced him by counsel, request, or command to read it aloud to them. So Lugo, loc. cit., n. 75; St. Alphonsus, book 7, n. 292; D'Annibale, II, 36. We do not deny that against this interpretation, with Hollweck, p. 24, note 1, one can object a certain rigorous adherence to the letter by which the end of the law can be eluded. Nevertheless, the end of the law is not the law; someone finds a person to read aloud with more difficulty than he reads himself; nor is it repugnant that a positive law be deficient in a rarer case, even one which, according to itself, would be touched by a stronger right. This is not to be attributed to a defect of the law, but to the variety of contingent cases; nor does it supply sufficient reason why, in an odious law, you should abandon the strict propriety of the words.

Who retain

51. They retain who keep a book in their possession, whether their own or another's; or also those who deposit it with another, while retaining ownership, unless he has the faculty of reading prohibited books and can keep the book until either it is expurgated or the one handing it over has himself obtained the faculty of reading. Nor are you here excused by ignorance of the language.

What of a custodian of a library, of a bookbinder

But he does not seem to retain who is merely the custodian of a library in which books of this kind are contained, unless he has preserved them in his own house or room.

Strictly speaking, a bookbinder also retains. Nevertheless, from a certain epikeia, it seems permitted that he retain prohibited books while he binds them for one having the faculty. Indeed, even for one not having it, if a reason of loss has intervened. Besides, he will generally be protected by ignorance. Cf. Arndt, p. 235, n. 173.¹

What if you retain because of the extrinsic apparatus of the volume, etc

What if you have wished not indeed to read certain works of prohibited reading, but merely to retain them, because a notable price is present in the covers with which they are bound (reliure artistique), or in the images with which they are decorated, or in the ancient or rare type with which they are made?

Of itself, indeed, a just cause is present here for seeking a faculty, which will not be denied. Yet if, as not rarely happens, from the mode in which they are kept and from the price of the art itself there is no moral danger that they be read, they seem, as it were, to have lost the nature of a book. For the formal use of a book is reading. Therefore the necessity of seeking a faculty, especially if some inconvenience is added, does not seem to be strictly urgent.

¹ Lessius, however, whom Arndt names (Auctarium V. Haereticorum libri), speaks only from natural law.