Title II: On the Censure of Books

End and reason of being of censure

104. 1. The censure of books was chiefly instituted for this reason: that subjects which indeed can profit much, but can also harm the spiritual utility of the faithful, may be proposed to them only cautiously and prudently.

And while ecclesiastical Prelates do not permit the faithful freely to bring forward publicly their opinions on religious matters, at the same time they inculcate and make manifest the distinction divinely introduced between the Church teaching and the Church learning.

The Bishops of England observed this in their encyclical letters of the year 1900.

What "Imprimatur" signifies

Yet beware lest you confuse the license of publishing with positive approval. For a work which ecclesiastical power permits to be printed, it neither makes its own, nor positively praises or approves; but in itself it merely indicates that, at least in the present circumstances, it can be tolerated, since it does not seem to contain such things as are worthy of reproof to such a degree that the book itself seems to have to be suppressed. Therefore it is not repugnant that a work permitted in this place be prohibited in another, or that one now dismissed should afterwards have to be prohibited; and, conversely also, it can happen, and in reality does happen, that a book is struck from the Index.

N.B. To what end censure?

2. Previous censure is required not so much in order that a book be committed to type, as in order that copies be scattered among the public. For almost everywhere in the Constitution the license is said to be sought or necessary in order that a work be published,¹ be published into the light,² be made public,³ become public.⁴ Hence if, in articles 37 and 38, speech is made concerning printing, that word seems to sound the same as publication in article 40. Cf. Genicot, cited work, I, 458.

How the work is to be submitted to censure

3. Nor are the solemnities of the Instruction of Clement VIII, De Impressione, sec. 4, now required.⁵ Therefore it does not matter whether you exhibit a manuscript codex, or sheets already described in type (des epreuves d'imprimerie), provided that you are prepared to make the prescribed corrections. Genicot,⁶ Hollweck.⁷ Nor must one copy now be given as a gift to the censor.⁸

What things do not undergo censure can be published without license

4. Although in itself the approval of the censor differs from permission of publishing, because nevertheless a work is submitted to previous examination in order to obtain this faculty, a work which is exempted from previous censure can be spread in type without any license having been sought. Pennacchi, cited work, n. 78.

¹ Art. 8, 19, 34.

² Art. 31, 36.

³ Art. 13, 15, 17, 20, 32, 42.

⁴ Art. 35.

⁵ Dilgskron explains those solemnities, Analecta Eccl., 1897, pp. 89, 90.

⁶ Cited place, 458.

⁷ Das kirchl. Bucherverbot, p. 58.

⁸ Pennacchi, cited work, n. 77.

Grave or light obligation

105. You will ask concerning the grave and light obligation of conscience by which the laws on previous censure are to be observed.

In itself the obligation of obeying the laws on previous censure is grave. Yet in order that you may judge a particular fact, these things especially are to be observed:

a) With what strictness of usage the laws themselves are observed in the place where the work is published. For from this the account of scandal varies very much. Where strict observance is in force, the law cannot be passed over without suspicion of contempt being introduced; and this contempt is easily to be judged mortal. While in another place the matter, in a certain oblivion, ignorance, or at least imperfect good faith, obtains a milder explanation. But grave scandal and contempt being excluded, there remains to be considered:

b) The objective gravity of the matter, which is different according to the different importance and subject matter of the book, and appears far less in a new edition of an approved book than in the first.