Section — Vermeersch, On Forbidden Books
II. On Pastoral Vigilance to Be Exercised by Ordinaries
The zeal of Ordinaries is stirred up
93. The zeal of Ordinaries is stirred up, that they opportunely warn the faithful concerning the danger and harm of reading of this sort. Arndt, pp. 91-96, nn. 81, 82, wisely develops that danger.
And, as we said, a similar zeal must be demonstrated concerning all newspapers which bear a mind alien from the Church. For daily reading of periodicals gradually makes persuasions common, or at least does not leave the contrary one untouched.
Whether in Belgium there exists a common prohibition of bad newspapers from episcopal law?
N.B. Formerly the Bishops of Belgium, in a pastoral Instruction, August 5, 1843, § 6, had decreed thus: "Nous renouvelons autant qu'il est en nous les défenses faites par l'Église sous peine de péché mortel d'imprimer," etc., "tous livres, journaux," etc. Cf. the text, for example, Statutes of Mechlin, Appendix XXVII.
Yet from this it is not established that there has force in Belgium a common prohibition issued by the Bishops. For they seem to forbid periodicals insofar as, as they themselves were persuaded, they were subject to the universal interdict of the Church. If not, since books are designated by the same sentence, an episcopal prohibition would have to be acknowledged also for books; and consequently the necessity, for reading them in Belgium, of seeking a double license, namely episcopal and pontifical, unless this were fortified by a special clause.1 Yet no one up to now has asserted this. But this seems to have been the end of the Declaration: that by that promulgation every doubt concerning the force of the laws of the Church in Belgium in this matter be removed. Cf. De Brabandere.2 He himself adds: "Since it is said, 'nous renouvelons,' no new law ... is added"; and very well Heymans:3 "Not only books are comprehended, but also any writings whatever ... if nevertheless the laws themselves of the Church, which are renewed, contained any writing whatever." Now, since before the Constitution of Leo XIII, especially after the remembered response of the Holy Office, April 27, 1880, praised above in n. 33, this at least was doubted: not improbably, in those dioceses which are under the regime of that pastoral Instruction alone,4 it is denied that there is an episcopal prohibition concerning periodicals.
1 Cf. article 25 of this Constitution. Yet concerning the efficacy of the act by which a bishop would wish to sanction more firmly a pontifical prohibition, there can be doubt. Cf. the declaration of article 25.
2 In the first edition, II, pp. 452, 453.
3 Cited work, n. 312.
4 For in Liège there were added the Instructions of the Most Illustrious Bishop in the years 1857, 1858, 1865. Also to be praised is the more recent letter of March 21, 1899, by which the new laws were proposed and inculcated to the faithful.