Morals of the Church
Library › Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology › Volume I › Book II. On the Exercise of the Christian Life, or on the Cultivation of the Virtues › Treatise II. On the Cultivation of the Moral Virtues › Dissertation II. On the Precepts of the Church › Part IV. On the Prior Censorship of Books and their Prohibition › Section II. On the Prohibition of Books › Chapter II. On Prohibited Books

Article — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

Article I. On Books Prohibited by the Law Itself

1120.

By force of can. 1399, the following are prohibited by the law itself:

I. Editions of the original text and of ancient Catholic versions of Sacred Scripture, even of the Eastern Church, published by any non-Catholics whatever; and likewise versions of the same into any language, made or published by the same.

II. Books of any writers whatever which defend heresy or schism, or strive in any way to overthrow the very foundations of religion. It is said:

  1. Which defend, i.e. which maintain by reasons.

  2. The very foundations of religion, i.e. the foundations either of natural religion or of revealed religion as such, or the truths which must be admitted so that one may be led either to the religious worship of God or to admitting revealed religion. That only the foundations of natural religion are not understood follows from the fact that the legislator, in place of natural religion, which the rule of the Council of Trent has, uses the broader expression religion.

Moreover, the foundations of natural religion are: the existence of a personal God, the spirituality of the soul, free will, etc.

The foundations of revealed religion as such are the motives of credibility, such as the force of proving which is present in miracles, etc.; but not the fundamental truths of faith itself, concerning which, as also concerning others, see under VI.

  1. Strive in any way to overthrow, whether by arguing or by deriding, whether directly or indirectly.

III. Books which deliberately attack religion or good morals.

  1. Religion, namely taken generally, whether natural or revealed.

  2. Deliberately, i.e. intentionally, by design, or with the intention of attacking them. This differs from the expression professedly; in the former, everything depends on the intention of the writer; in the latter, on the subject of the book. But since each condition must be judged from the book itself, it comes to almost the same thing.

IV. Books of any non-Catholics whatever which professedly treat of religion, unless it is clear that nothing against the Catholic faith is contained in them.

  1. Professedly, i.e. not incidentally but in the whole writing, or in a notable part of it, or throughout.

  2. Of religion; this word is commonly taken in a broad sense. "Of religion," says St. Alphonsus, "namely of Sacred Scripture, or of scholastic, dogmatic, or moral theology, or the mysteries of faith, of the worship of God or of the Saints, of the rites of the Church, of canons, of spiritual things and the like" (VII, 283).

  3. Against the Catholic faith, i.e. as we judge it should be interpreted, either against dogmas of faith or against those truths which cannot be called into doubt by Catholics without temerity.

V. If they have been published without observing the prescriptions of the canons: books of Sacred Scripture or annotations and commentaries on them; likewise books and booklets which recount new apparitions, revelations, visions, prophecies, miracles, or which introduce new devotions, even under the pretext that they are private.

VI. Books which attack or deride any one of the Catholic dogmas; which defend errors proscribed by the Apostolic See; which detract from divine worship; which contend to overthrow ecclesiastical discipline; and which deliberately heap reproaches upon the ecclesiastical hierarchy, or the clerical or religious state.

  1. Under the name Apostolic See come also the Congregations (cf. can. 7).

  2. Detract; namely notably, so that one or another word of detraction does not suffice.

  3. The clerical or religious state; hence it does not suffice that particular clerics or religious, or even a determined order or congregation, be affected with reproaches, unless one proceeds in such a way that the state also, as such, is attacked and affected with reproaches.

VII. Books which teach or commend superstition of any kind, sorceries, divination, magic, evocation of spirits, and other things of that kind.

VIII. Books which establish as lawful duel, suicide, or divorce; books which, treating of Masonic sects or other societies of the same kind, contend that they are useful and not pernicious to the Church and civil society.

Societies of the same kind are those which are both secret and, whether openly or clandestinely, plot against the Church or legitimate civil powers.

IX. Books which professedly treat, narrate, or teach lascivious or obscene matters. Books are understood which of themselves tend to corruption of morals, not merely scientific or classical books.

X. Editions of liturgical books approved by the Apostolic See in which anything has been changed, so that they do not agree with the authentic editions approved by the Holy See.

XI. Books by which apocryphal indulgences, or indulgences proscribed or revoked by the Holy See, are publicized.

XII. Images printed in any way whatever of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Angels and Saints, or other Servants of God, alien from the sense and decrees of the Church.