Books of Special Subject Matter

Subject of the chapter

From the very manner in which the chapter is inscribed, it becomes manifest that in it various kinds of matters are touched which cannot be brought into unity. But contrary to what was done in chapter I, the character or religion of the writer is here wholly put aside.

Books are condemned in which God, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Saints, or the Catholic Church and her Worship, or the Sacraments, or the Apostolic See is disparaged. To the same judgment of reprobation are subject those works in which the concept of the inspiration of Sacred Scripture is perverted, or its extension is too much narrowed. Books are also prohibited which, by designed effort, assail the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, or the clerical or religious state, with insults.

By the three sentences which it contains, this article is divided into three parts. It is useful to explain these separately.

Prior law

74. 1. The first part renews the disposition of the prior law, by which, in the General Decrees, § 2, n. 13, all writings of this sort were punished. Cf. Arndt, p. 148, n. 119.

Whether it is required that it be done of set purpose

2. Because words are to be taken properly, and the Legislator is accustomed to express the clause of set purpose wherever he requires it; indeed because in this same article, in the third part, he inserts the expression by designed effort, we cannot agree with the distinguished Pennacchi, who thinks that clause is to be understood here. With us are Génicot,¹ Card. Gennari,² Moureau.³

Yet practically we do not differ much. For, arguing from the inscription of this fifth chapter, "On Certain Books of Special Subject Matter," we think it necessary that the book be injurious to God, etc., sufficiently notably, although not yet of set purpose, so that it can be said to be of this special subject matter.⁴ Otherwise, moreover, contrary to the mind of this Constitution, this condemnation would extend itself to too many books. Finally, as Génicot, cited place, observes, scarcely will those books be apt gravely to wound or diminish the just esteem of God, etc., unless they are books in which the detraction is developed to some extent. But that grave wounding seems altogether necessary. Therefore it is necessary either that the detraction "be made in a notable manner,"⁵ or that from those detractions the work itself be morally reputed impious. Desjardins elegantly translates: "impious works, which attack God," etc.⁶

Wherefore a work in which detraction against the Blessed Virgin Mary is continued through two or three pages, even if in other parts honorable, we judge to be prohibited by this article.

What it is to disparage? Formal detraction is required

3. Furthermore, to disparage is to take away, diminish, the fame or esteem of someone by words. In French you would say: vilipender, dénigrer, discréditer. Thus detraction differs from heresy, by which a dogma is not derided but denied. But detraction is to be taken as formal, flowing from a depraved intention, not merely material or beyond intention.

Examples

4. God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the saints, the Catholic Church, and her worship or sacraments. Pennacchi, cited place, and C. Gennari⁷ report many examples of detractions of this sort, and well selected ones. Yet we do not, with Pennacchi, take the worship of the Church concerning the honor due to the Church, which would make that clause plainly useless, but concerning the divine worship which is exercised through liturgical actions. Thus the obvious sense has it, thus also the structure of the words which joins worship with sacraments: "and her worship or sacraments"; and with us say Desjardins, cited place, Son Culte; Gennari, cited place, Il sacro Culto; Hollweck, Ihr Cult; Planchard.⁸

What worship is

5. Apostolic See. This is not the person of some Pontiff as such. Yet if, from the intention of attacking the Holy See, reproachful narrations against various Supreme Pontiffs are heaped together, the present clause will obtain.

¹ Cited work, I, 452.

² On this place, p. 43.

³ Rev. des Sciences Eccl., t. 6, pp. 100, 101.

⁴ C. Gennari, cited place, sins here by excessive severity: "in whatever measure it is done (provided it is in grave matter)"; and Moureau, cited place: "it suffices that it be [injurious] in fact in some place."

⁵ Wernz, n. 111.

⁶ Études, t. 71, p. 208.

⁷ "He disparages God who blasphemes God or denies His goodness, justice, omnipotence, or any other attribute. He disparages the Blessed Virgin Mary who denies her virginity, divine maternity, sanctity, mercy, or in another way calumniates her excellence. He disparages the Saints who holds them as vicious or useless men, who are unworthy of honors, or who contemns their virtues and supernatural gifts. He disparages the Catholic Church who attacks some note or endowment of hers, or her divine origin, or equates her with other human institutes. He disparages sacred worship who exposes Catholic rites, as divine honors, to mockery, or detracts from their necessity and reasonable fittingness; he disparages the Sacraments who denies that they are necessary or useful, makes them ridiculous, or holds suspect the intentions of the Church administering them (that seems to us rather to be referred to detraction of the Church). He disparages the Apostolic See who contemns its supreme authority, divine institution, sublime and infallible magisterium." Thus nearly C. Gennari, on this place.

⁸ Desjardins, cited work, p. 34; Planchard, Rev. Th. Fr., n. 41.

Apostolic See

75. By the second part of article 11, to recall it, works are reprobated "in which the concept of the inspiration of Sacred Scripture is perverted, or its extension is too much narrowed."

The double vice, how it is committed

1. Therefore books are condemned in which either the formal reason of inspiration is adulterated, or its material breadth is lessened.

But again it is necessary that such a place be given to these vices that inspiration can be placed among the subjects of the book and that the perverse notion of inspiration or the excessive narrowing be persuaded to the reader.

But works are not condemned which, by the contrary vice, amplify the parts of inspiration more than is just.

Norm of judging

2. But which books are to be thought to pervert inspiration or to lessen it too much, so that for that reason they are proscribed, this is to be judged from the certain and sufficiently open doctrine of the Church, not from that which, perhaps undeservedly, is still controverted among Catholics. The norm will especially be the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus of Leo XIII, November 18, 1893, in those of its points which are sufficiently agreed upon by all; and the decrees of the Holy See, insofar as directly or indirectly they have the force of law.

Cases of each kind

Moreover, he is judged to pervert the concept of inspiration:

a) who holds it merely as a subsequent approval;¹

b) who professes that an inspired place is necessarily immune only from errors in faith or morals, so that it could contain, for example, a historical error, which redounds upon the sacred writers.

He lessens its breadth too much who has dared "to narrow inspiration to only some parts of Scripture," while God so "roused and moved" men (whom he was inspiring), so "assisted them while writing, that they conceived all those things and only those things which he himself ordered ... wished to write them ... expressed them."

Decrees given after the Encyclical

3. Come now: to the Encyclical Providentissimus, two responses of the Pontifical Commission concerning the biblical matter were added, which the Supreme Pontiff approved and ordered to be made public. Both pertain to our matter.

The first, February 13, 1905, denied that it is lawful for a Catholic exegete, in order to solve difficulties, to have recourse to tacit or implicit citations, except in a case in which, with the sense and judgment of the Church preserved, it is proved by solid arguments: 1° that the hagiographer truly cites the sayings or documents of another; and 2° that he neither approves nor makes the same his own, so that he is judged by right not to speak in his own name.

The other, June 23, 1905, repudiated narratives only apparently historical, "except, nevertheless, in a case, not easily nor rashly to be admitted, in which, the sense of the Church not resisting and her judgment being preserved, it is proved by solid arguments that the hagiographer wished not to hand down true and properly so-called history, but, under the appearance and form of history, to propose a parable, allegory, or some sense removed from the proper literal or historical signification of the words."

¹ Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 2.

76. The third part of article 11 stated this: Books are also prohibited which, by designed effort, assail the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, or the clerical or religious state, with insults.

By designed effort

1. By designed effort, not therefore if they cast out some such thing incidentally. For because, unlike detraction and the perversion of the concept of inspiration, insults can be cast out even in one word, the wise Legislator expressed the clause by designed effort, by which he touches only books which would assail with insults either in a notable part and with conceived purpose, or in such a way that from the manner and frequency it would appear that this is fixed and established for the writer: to seize in the book every occasion of doing these things. In French you would say: c'est un parti pris. Cf. Pennacchi.¹ Very well Hollweck:² "this tendency must dominate the whole, or at least a considerable part." Planchard:³ "which disparage by deliberate bias."

What Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is

2. Ecclesiastical Hierarchy: sacred power distributed into various grades, whether of Order or of Jurisdiction. The case would be, for example, if you assail with insults the Priestly order, the Episcopal order, the Supreme Pontificate.

The clerical or religious state is to be assailed as such

3. Clerical or religious state: as such; not, for example, if you assail merely such and such a religious Order with these things.

¹ Cited work, n. 49.

² Das kirchl. Bücherverbot, p. 34, note 3.

³ Rev. Th. Fr., cited place, n. 43.

Let it be unlawful to publish, read, or retain books in which sortilege, divination, magic, evocation of spirits, and other superstitions of this kind are taught or commended.

What sortilege is

77. 1. Sortilege is divination by lots, or that which is exercised by inspecting how some action succeeds, done by you for the end of obtaining an indication: as if, with this intention, you throw dice, observe what occurs by opening a book at that place which chance has offered, set forth unequal straws, etc. Cf. St. Thomas, 2a 2ae, q. 95, art. 3.

Divination

2. Divination designates that kind of superstitions by which someone, by the help of the demon, expressly or tacitly (if you seriously use an inept means), invokes, wishes to know contingent and freely future things, or other things hidden and inaccessible to himself. Hither therefore come praestigia, pythons, oneiromancy, geomancy, haruspices, auguries, etc.

Magic

3. Magic rather embraces those superstitions by which marvelous effects are sought (on account of the satisfaction of vain curiosity): various changes of bodies, etc.

Evocation of spirits?

4. Evocation of spirits, namely of souls separated from the body. For if you should expressly wish a demon to appear, there is divination which they call praestigium. Moreover, concerning that evocation B. P. write:¹ "It is established by faith that God does not wish the souls of the dead to be evoked by men ... This is the certain doctrine of the Church."

To this pertains the recent response of the Holy Office,² by which there is reprobated the practice of someone who, while protesting that he rejected every commerce with the demon, nevertheless was attempting to evoke the very souls of the dead.

Superstitions of this kind

5. And other superstitions of this kind. Therefore they will be those which tend to this: that hidden things be disclosed, marvelous things be accomplished, commerce be entered into with spirits or separated souls. Sufficiently and more than sufficiently our modern spiritism is touched by this article.

When they are taught

6. They are taught, or are handed down as if an art: not indeed the art of simulating them (for they mostly consist in frauds), but the art of exercising them, although the writer is conscious of the vanity of the means.

Are commended?

7. They are commended, not if the facts of "spiritism," etc., are merely reported.

Notable matter is required

8. On account of the reason made in explaining article 11, it is necessary that those superstitious arts be either taught or commended sufficiently diffusely.

What of hypnotism and magnetic phenomena, as they say?

9. But what of the various arts of modern hypnotism or magnetism?

Deliberately we have abstained from these names, by which many too easily suppose superstitious arts, although that moral canon had to be recalled: in doubt, the matter must be presumed to pertain to the natural order, that is, to the secondary causes of this world.

First of all, concerning medical hypnotism, which is practiced even by Catholic physicians, no question can be raised.

Its use does not transcend the natural order, and, with due cautions, is most honorable. Cf. Theol. mor.

As to other phenomena, several already (for example, the simple motion of tables) have a natural and sufficiently open explanation in spontaneous impulses, "suggestions" of the imagination, and so forth. Concerning some, if all fraud is absent, the explanation appears less easy and perhaps still escapes us. Therefore cautiously, and only if a proportionate cause has manifestly failed, will you pronounce that there is superstition objectively.³

And so, as pertains to our matter:

a) Scientific books about hypnotism and magnetic phenomena are by no means affected by the present article.

b) Books which strive to offer fodder of this kind to popular curiosity, although they are often harmful, nevertheless cannot in themselves, or commonly, be ascribed to superstitious books.

What of books of pagans

10. On account of a similar reason, on account of which heretics of the more ancient age, whose heresies have become almost harmless, can already be frequented at least by the learned, books of the more ancient pagans which treat of divinations foreign to present-day use seem also immune from positive reprobation.

¹ Tr. 6, s. 1, n. 99.

² March 30-April 1, 1898.

³ For subjective persuasion can differ by defect or excess from the objective reason of the matter. Here, however, the persuasion or intention of the writer is not observed.

Books or writings which narrate new apparitions, revelations, visions, prophecies, miracles, or which introduce new devotions, even under the pretext that they are private, if they are published without the legitimate license of the Superiors of the Church, are proscribed.

The prior part of this article treats of narrations of miracles; the other of commendations of devotions. We shall treat each part separately.

Economy of the law

78. 1. Books or writings of this subject matter can in themselves have great merit; but lest the credulity of simple persons be deceived, or an occasion be given of deriding and contemning the Church, the Holy See prohibits supernatural facts¹ from being incautiously published. Wherefore it simply condemns those relations, if, destitute of due approval, they are scattered among the people. Now let us declare the chief words of the article.

Which works are touched

2. Books or writings: therefore works of every size or form are included by this law, even, as it seems,² if manuscripts, provided they are made public.

Example of publication by manuscript

Thus, for example, that manner concerning devotions is sometimes employed, if individuals who have received a copy are ordered to write it out five times and to hand it over to five persons, who are held by the same law of writing and handing over, and so on to infinity.

When they are judged to narrate. What of newspapers?

3. Which narrate: not incidentally, but so that a narration of this sort pertains to the subjects of the works. Cf. above, n. 74, 4.

For this reason we think that Catholic but profane newspapers can, as they have done up to now, report marvelous facts, healings, which for example may have happened in a Lourdes pilgrimage: especially if they pronounce nothing about the supernatural character of these things. Besides, this other reason also favors them: that a usage sufficiently obtains in our parts, by force of which, on account of the difficulty of "execution," as they say, articles which in themselves must be reviewed by ecclesiastical authority are dispensed from censure.³ Without a compelling reason, what we see commonly frequented is not to be reprobated.⁴

What are new apparitions, etc.?

4. New apparitions, revelations, etc.: therefore not those which are already everywhere praised in the Church. Thus, for example, the revelations of the Most Sacred Heart made to Blessed Margaret Mary, the Lourdes apparitions. Yet books of this sort will be subject to previous censure from article 41.

Therefore, from the end of the article, for new apparitions we seem to have to take not only those which have recently happened, but those which are new to readers, to hearers, insofar as they have not yet been received in the Church by formal decree or by usage. Wernz⁵ says, "not yet approved and published."

What is to publish?

5. If they are published. To publish is not only to communicate something with certain selected persons, even if they are sufficiently numerous, but to make it public,⁶ "to expose it for sale, or to scatter it among the people in whatever manner." Pennacchi.⁷

Which superiors give legitimate license?

6. Without the legitimate license of the Superiors of the Church. Who are these? Regularly, Bishops. If they look to causes of beatifications, etc., the license must be obtained from the Congregation of Sacred Rites. We preserve that disposition of prior law intact.⁸

¹ Not rarely the very word miracle is used, by a certain broader usage, to designate a grace "which from some circumstance of time, place, or person bears before itself the appearance of a miracle." Benedict XIV, De Beatif. et Canoniz., book 4, part 1, chapter 1, n. 13. Yet in the same place he teaches that this grace is distinguished from a miracle. For although, some saint having been invoked, you have recovered sooner, for example, than you hoped, nevertheless you do not affirm formally that it is a miracle, unless you have denied that that effect can be attributed to any natural power, such as that of the remedies which you used.

² Hollweck, Das Kirchl. Bücherverb., p. 35; Wernz, n. 111, note 67 (not very perspicuously on account of the added conditions); but against Génicot, Theol. mor., I, 454.

³ Göpfert, p. 321 d.

⁴ It is confirmed by Génicot, cited work, I, 453, 3; Hollweck, cited work, p. 44, note 3; Pennacchi, cited work, n. 51.

⁵ Cited place, n. 111, note 67.

⁶ Constitution, article 35.

⁷ Cited work, n. 38.

⁸ N. 47, cited place. And he cites the Constitution Supernae Maiestatis of Leo X, § 7.

The prior law having been proposed, it is asked whether it still has force or not

79. You will ask, what of the other prior law, or of the protestations prescribed by Urban VIII?

The juridic provision of the prior law regarded only those marvelous facts which were imputed to servants of God not yet beatified. Books of this sort were forbidden to be published unless approved and furnished with a double protestation.

Moreover, the same Pontiff Urban VIII, on June 5, 1631, had decreed that one who, in describing the life of a servant of God, called him Saint or Blessed, should append to the book the protestation "that in these things there is no authority from the Roman Church, but the faith is only with the author."¹

Even now it happens that certain writers, led by a pious mind, wish to observe the decrees of Urban VIII; but when they do not know what precisely must be declared, they sometimes merely testify "that they understand matters as Urban VIII wishes."

But, from the general rule proposed above, n. 19, it is clearly perceived that protestations of this sort are now required by no law. There were, in the beginning, some who did not recognize this matter as sufficiently plain,² but the opinion has now become common,³ and it is supported by a certain argument.

¹ Cf. Benedict XIV, De Beatif. et Canon., book 3, chapter 12, nn. 2-4.

² See in Nouv. Rev. Théol., t. 30, p. 109; Planchard, Revue Théol. Franc., cited place, n. 47; Pennacchi, Acta S. Sedis, cited place, n. 51, p. 223.

³ Génicot, cited work, I, 454, 3; Hollweck, Das Kirchl. Bücherverbot, pp. 33, 44, 52, 55; Ciolli, cited work, n. 35.

80. The other part of article 13 takes care lest new devotions be introduced imprudently. For it forbids books or writings ... which introduce new devotions, even under the pretext that they are private, if they are published without the legitimate license of the Superiors of the Church.

What books or writings are

1. Books or writings. Therefore it does not matter in what form or size they are published. Cf. above, the things just said, n. 78, 2.

Which introduce

2. Which ... introduce, insofar as they do not merely report them, but suggest them, recommend them, or appear composed for the spreading of the devotion (Ecrits, feuillets de propagande).

Devotions

Devotions are manners of exercising the virtue of religion, or of worshipping God or the saints.

New?

They are judged new which have not yet prevailed by usage. With us is Pennacchi, cited work, n. 51.

Moreover, a devotion can be new either from its immediate object: for example, toward the heart of St. Joseph, some part of Christ's humanity hitherto not specially honored; or from its manner, as if you should invent the cincture of St. Aloysius; if, from a certain pretended vision, you began to propose St. Catherine as patroness of those who are carried on those wheels which have the name "velocipedes." Cf. Cosmos, August 1897, pp. 164-166, etc.¹ But it will not be a new devotion if you propose certain prayers customary in the Church to be recited for nine days in honor of some saint; or if from approved prayers you compose a "week" or a month, adorn them with commentaries and explain them.² Yet if you wished first to consecrate a month or certain Sundays to the worshipping of some saint, we think this to be a new devotion.

Once and again already before this, the Holy See had recalled the minds of the faithful from following these novelties, and had warned writers "that they should weigh the danger which underlies the drawing of the faithful into error even concerning dogmas of faith, and the furnishing of an occasion to haters of religion for disparaging the purity of Catholic doctrine and true piety." Holy Office, general Monitum added to the decree of January 13, 1875, inculcated anew June 3, 1891, and April 3, 1895.³

It does not matter by what manner they are to be exercised

3. Even under the pretext that they are private. Therefore it does not matter by what manner they are to be exercised.

Who will give legitimate license?

4. If they are published without legitimate license. This will sometimes be given by the Bishop, sometimes by the Holy See alone: as if they look to sacred Rites.

But once approved by one Bishop, in themselves they can be diffused into other dioceses. We draw this from the general canon concerning previous censure. Cf. below. But if that new devotion seems inopportune to another Bishop, he will be able to exercise against it his faculty of proscribing works published or diffused in his diocese.

¹ Thus there were disapproved: the feast concerning the most sacred blood of Mary; the title N. D. du Sacré Coeur explained by dominion over the Son Himself; emblems of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist; the title Friend of the Sacred Heart given to St. Joseph; a certain manner of honoring the Face of the Redeemer as a distinct object; the title D. N. I. C. the Penitent; the prayer for the dominion of Christ and Mary Immaculate over all creatures (Holy Office, 1875, 1891, 1893, 1895); any writings whatever, even not printed by type, provided nevertheless they were propagated, concerning the private cult of the divine hands of the Redeemer, the devotion della Mano poderosa, of the New Cross of the Immaculate Conception, the devotion to the soul of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Cf. decree of the Congregation of the Index, April 19, 1906, referring the decree of the Holy Office, February 6, 1906; decree of March 31 and May 1, 1901.

² Pennacchi, cited work, n. 51.

³ N. R. Th., t. 7, p. 205; t. 24, p. 382; t. 27, p. 488 sq.

Likewise prohibited are books which establish duel, suicide, or divorce as lawful; which treat of Masonic sects, or other societies of the same kind, and contend that they are useful and not pernicious to the Church and to civil society; and which defend errors proscribed by the Apostolic See.

The three parts of this article must be declared separately. Books are condemned here on account of certain undertaken defenses of bad causes.

What duel is? Which things are touched here

81. 1. Duel, namely undertaken on private authority; since it is established that other combats can be justified. Moreover, a duel is a dangerous combat of two persons (or of a few, equal in number), which is undertaken from agreement, or from a certain pact previously made concerning place, time, and also, at least as usage bears, concerning weapons, and these lethal. It is called dangerous insofar as it brings danger of life, of mutilation, or at least of grave wound.

What suicide is

2. Suicide, or the direct killing of oneself, done by one's own authority.

Divorce?

3. Divorce, namely in the modern acceptance, or perfect, by which is designated the sacrilegious attempt of breaking the bond of marriage, even consummated marriage, so that the faculty is given of entering a new marriage while the partner is living.

What if they are said to be lawful by accident?

4. Lawful: whether in themselves, or even in any case whatsoever or by accident. For the mind of the Legislator is clear, by which he wished to protect Catholic doctrine.

When they are established as lawful

5. They establish, that is, they do not merely assert, but contend that it is so, or attempt to demonstrate it;¹ and this with that breadth which satisfies the inscription of chapter 5. Cf. n. 74, 2.

¹ Cf. Gennari, cited place, p. 40.

It is necessary that they treat of these

82. 1. Which treat: therefore so that sects of this sort are truly the subject matter (although perhaps not the only subject matter) of the book. It is not sufficient that speech be made incidentally about them. Cf. above, n. 74, 2.

That they preach them as useful

2. And contend that they are useful ... Therefore it is necessary that at the same time they be preached as harmless, or affirmed not without force (as if by demonstrating): for to contend is to affirm vehemently, keenly.

What a sect is. A society of the same kind as Masonic societies

3. Of Masonic sects or other societies of the same kind. Sect designates a society of persons who profess the same doctrine. But which sects are to be called of the same kind as Masonic ones, it is worthwhile to weigh accurately. Such certainly are not merely religious sects, such as those of the Old Catholics. Cf. Avanz.-Penn., t. I, p. 618.

The generic notes are:

But the required notes must be drawn both from common acceptance and from the documents of the Holy See. In this matter the chief place is occupied by the Encyclical Humanum genus, given April 20, 1884. From these it is necessary:

A secret sect

a) That the sect be in some way secret or hidden. For that Masonic sects pertain to the genus of clandestine societies, and constitute the most noted species of this genus, is proved both by common acceptance and by the perpetual usage of documents of the Holy See;¹ and it is still recently acknowledged in the provincial Ruthenian Synod, chapter 6, article 21.² Nor does it stand in the way that in the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis³ societies of this kind seem to be called "societies which plot against the Church or legitimate powers, whether openly or clandestinely." For, from Leo XIII himself, in the Encyclical Humanum genus,⁴ today the sects of the Masons "openly and manifestly strive for the ruin of the holy Church," and nevertheless below there is added: "when the matter has been wholly considered, they retain the character and custom of clandestine societies." This is then most beautifully demonstrated. For who the members are, who the leaders are, can still be plainly hidden. And an open or clandestine plotting can perhaps be referred to the end which some sects profess, while others rather hide it. For in reality the Sacred Congregation had to respond, August 21, 1850,⁵ that it mattered little that they professed themselves to oppose nothing to religion or to the civil republic.

Yet the oath of secrecy, or a rite of initiation, is not required.⁶

A strict bond

b) That the members be united by a strict bond. This note also perpetually recurs in the pontifical Documents.⁷ From Clement XII, "they are associated ... by a strict and inaccessible bond"; and Leo XIII, in the cited Encyclical, objects against them that they bind "men to themselves, as slaves, by a most tenacious bond, and with the cause not sufficiently declared."

An end directly contrary to the Church or to the legitimate political order

c) That from their end,⁸ which they intend openly or secretly, the sects themselves, not only some of the members or leaders, be proved to set before themselves, against the Church and the civil powers, the overthrow of the peace and felicity of the Church, disturbances, and seditions.⁹ For they are sects "which set before themselves something against the Church or government";¹⁰ "which plot against the Church or legitimate powers";¹¹ which wish "to overturn utterly that whole discipline of religion and of the republic which Christian institutions have brought forth, and to construct a new one according to their own bent, with foundations and laws drawn from the midst of Naturalism."¹²

Therefore there can be several sects prohibited under grave guilt which nevertheless are not of this kind. Cf. the response of the Holy Office, May 17, 1886, whence it is clear that societies which have been instituted for promoting cremations of corpses are not necessarily counted among the Masonic.

Various examples

Moreover, sects of this sort are: the society of the Fenians from the declaration of the Holy Office, January 12, 1870;¹³ "Carbonaria";¹⁴ Mazzinian, "Nihilist," "Anarchist" societies which strive after revolutions (révolutionnaires); but not a society of robbers, since it is not directed against civil powers.

¹ Thus Clement XII describes them, Constitution In eminenti, 1738: "men of any religion and sect, content with a certain affected appearance of natural honesty, are associated with one another by a bond as strict as it is inaccessible, according to laws and statutes established for themselves, and at the same time act secretly ..." "The other [cause why they are condemned] is the strict and inaccessible bond of secrecy, by which those things which are done in conventicles of this sort are hidden." Benedict XIV, Constitution Providas, March 18, 1751; Pius VII, Constitution Ecclesiam a Iesu Christo, September 15, 1821, call them "hidden assemblies and clandestine sects." The same appellation "clandestine sects" occurs everywhere in the Constitution Quo graviora, issued by Leo XII against Masonic sects on March 13, 1825. The Holy Office, wishing on August 5, 1846 to define which sects were condemned in the pontifical Constitutions, at the beginning addresses them with the words "hidden societies." And in the Encyclical Quanta cura, December 8, 1864, they are also called "clandestine sects." Certainly, in 1884, the Holy Office (Coll. Prop. Fid., n. 1865), in the appended Instruction, declared that an oath of secrecy is not required, but in the article itself it treats of denouncing hidden leaders: which already implies some manner of secrecy.

² Cf. Archiv, t. 78, pp. 72, 73.

³ Second series, fourth excommunication.

⁴ At the beginning.

⁵ The response is cited by Avanz.-Penn., t. I, Appendix 19, p. 615.

⁶ Holy Office, 1846 and 1884, Coll. Prop. Fid., cited place.

⁷ Those Constitutions are reported in Avanz.-Penn., t. I, pp. 596 sqq., or Appendix 19.

⁸ "They must be judged from the end which they set before themselves, not from elsewhere." D'Annibale, in the Reatine commentary on the Constitution Apostolicae Sedis, n. 82.

⁹ Leo XII, cited Constitution.

¹⁰ Holy Office, August 5, 1846.

¹¹ Constitution Apostolicae Sedis and Instruction of the Holy Office, May 10, 1884.

¹² Leo XIII, Constitution Humanum genus.

¹³ Coll. P. F., n. 1860.

¹⁴ From the Constitution of Pius VII; December 28, 1878.

What of socialists?

83. You will ask, what of socialists?

It must be observed that, among those who come under this name, some are absolute Socialists, who profess all those errors which Leo XIII sets forth in the Constitution Quod Apostolici, and are also prepared to promote their cause by force and arms; while others hold a certain mitigated or partial socialism, and assert that they will use only legal means for gradually introducing their principles practically.

Moreover, as regards the manner of joining together, they can remain individuals, as for a long time they were in England;¹ or be united in the manner of a political faction; or finally be fused into a very strict sect, and a hidden one.

These things having been set down, those who are united into a sect, hidden in that manner which has been explained, of absolute socialism, certainly must be held as pertaining to a society of the Masonic kind: not so much from their opposition to the Catholic religion, as from their intention "of tearing up the foundations of any civil society whatever."²

Others, on the contrary, especially from the fact that they constitute no hidden sect and are not joined by a strict bond, seem to wander outside that genus.

Wherefore there does not seem to be place for the absolute affirmation which Nouv. Revue Théol.,³ C. Gennari,⁴ and also Pennacchi⁵ have given; but one must see what the circumstances of socialism are in each region; and in doubt let us permit the judgment to the Ordinaries of places. Let us rather imitate the prudence of the Holy See, which, concerning many societies into which workers in the United States of America are compelled, and which seem very akin to Masonic societies, so that sometimes they impose civil funerals on their adherents, was unwilling to define that matter. Concerning several, the American Bishops are divided. Cf. the letters of C. Monaco, August 20, 1894,⁶ and the cited Ruthenian provincial synod.⁷

What in Belgium?

Concerning the association which socialists constitute in Belgium, we questioned several persons, both theologians and experts in economic science. To a man they responded to us that socialists in Belgium are regarded by them as a political faction (un parti) rather than that they seem to be a sect.

Moreover, especially in this question of a contingent and mutable fact, no firm argument for the contrary thesis can be drawn from some appellation employed twenty years ago in the Encyclical Quod Apostolici. And from the fact that there speech is made of Socialists, Anarchists, and Nihilists as of one sect,⁸ it is indeed consequent that there are Socialists who differ from Anarchists, etc., only in name; but not that all Socialists are and will perpetually be parts or members of a sect of this sort.

Our opinion, which from day to day seems to us to become more manifest, is now defended by Boudinhon⁹ and Hollweck,¹⁰ but not yet by Wernz,¹¹ nor by Ciolli.¹²

¹ Cf. P. Verhaegen, Les socialistes anglais. Ghent, 1898, Imprimerie Het Volk.

² Constitution Quod Apostolici, at the beginning.

³ T. 28, pp. 178, 179.

⁴ Monit., cited place, X, p. 40.

⁵ A. S. S., cited place, n. 52, from p. 299.

⁶ N. R. Th., t. 27, p. 603. The cause concerned three societies: Odd Fellows, Sons of Temperance, Knights of Pythias. The Holy Office reprobated them, but abstained from application of the excommunication issued against sects of the Masonic kind.

⁷ Archiv, cited place, pp. 72, 73.

⁸ And thus it becomes manifest that regard is had rather to those socialists who in the year 1848 in reality were thinking of violently overturning everything in France.

⁹ Cited work, p. 113.

¹⁰ Die Strafgesetze, § 104, 2.

¹¹ Cited work, n. 111, note 14.

¹² Cited work, n. 37. He also includes societies concerning which the Holy Office was unwilling to decree that matter. Cf. above the note concerning the Odd Fellows, etc. Cf. Hollweck, Die Strafgesetze, § 105, 1.

84. Books are condemned which defend errors proscribed by the Apostolic See.

What errors are

1. Errors: propositions condemned at least as erroneous.

Apostolic See

2. By the Apostolic See: by the Supreme Pontiff either immediately, or by means of a Roman Congregation, namely the Holy Office.¹

Among these must be numbered books which defend or champion errors condemned by the Syllabus. Sacred Congregation of the Index, May 19-23, 1898, to 2.

To defend?

3. They defend: they do not merely assert, but are eager to vindicate; with sufficient abundance of words, so that the inscription of chapter 5 obtains.

N.B. When excommunication is committed

N.B. Those who teach or defend propositions condemned by the Apostolic See under penalty of excommunication latae sententiae, or that the practice of inquiring into the name of an accomplice is lawful, as it had been condemned by Benedict XIV, incur excommunication latae sententiae simply reserved to the Roman Pontiff (Const. Apostolicae Sedis, first excommunication of the second series).

¹ With us is Pennacchi, A. S. S., cited work, n. 52. Besides, on January 13, 1892 (N. R. Th., t. 24, p. 170), to the second, the Holy Office responded that by acts proceeding from the Apostolic See are designated acts "which mediately" proceed from it, that is, through the Sacred Congregation. But that, as the distinguished Planchard asserts, Rev. Th. Fr., cited place, n. 53, a proposition condemned by an ecumenical Council is not comprehended, this we by no means see. And decrees of a Council of this sort have customarily been promulgated through a pontifical Constitution.

Question 1. Which books are to be subjected to prior censure?

Response. § 1. Unless ecclesiastical censure has preceded, let there not be published, even by laypersons:

1st. Books of the sacred Scriptures, or annotations and commentaries on the same;

2nd. Books which regard the divine Scriptures, sacred theology, ecclesiastical history, canon law, natural theology, ethics, or other religious and moral disciplines of this kind; books and booklets of prayers, of devotion, or of doctrine and religious, moral, ascetical, mystical instruction, and other such things, although they seem to conduce to fostering piety; and generally writings in which there is something which particularly concerns religion and uprightness of morals;

3rd. Sacred images to be printed in any manner whatever, whether they have prayers adjoined, or are published without them.

§ 2. The license of publishing the books and images about which in § 1 can be given either by the local Ordinary proper to the author, or by the Ordinary of the place in which the books or images are made public, or by the Ordinary of the place in which they are printed, yet in such a way that, if any one of those Ordinaries has denied license, the author cannot seek it from another Ordinary unless he has informed the same concerning the license denied by another.

§ 3. Religious, however, must also first obtain the license of their own major Superior (Can. 1385).

Question 4. What books are prohibited by the law itself?

Response. By the law itself are prohibited:

1st. Editions of the original text and of the ancient Catholic versions of sacred Scripture, even of the Oriental Church, published by any non-Catholics whatever; likewise versions of the same into whatever language, prepared or published by the same;

2nd. Books of any writers whatever, defending heresy or schism, or striving in any way whatever to overthrow the foundations themselves of religion;

3rd. Books which deliberately attack religion or good morals;

4th. Books of any non-Catholics whatever which treat expressly of religion, unless it is established that nothing against the Catholic faith is contained in them;

5th. The books about which in can. 1385, § 1, n. 1 and can. 1391; likewise from those about which in the cited can. 1385, § 1, n. 2, books and booklets which narrate new apparitions, revelations, visions, prophecies, miracles, or which introduce new devotions, even under the pretext that they are private, if they have been published without the prescriptions of the canons being observed;

6th. Books which attack or deride any 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 assail with reproaches the ecclesiastical hierarchy, or the clerical or religious state;

7th. Books which teach or commend superstition of any kind, sorceries, divination, magic, evocation of spirits, and other things of that kind;

8th. Books which establish dueling or suicide or divorce as lawful; which, treating of Masonic sects or other societies of the same kind, contend that these are useful and not pernicious to the Church and civil society;

9th. Books which expressly treat, narrate, or teach lascivious or obscene things;

10th. Editions of liturgical books approved by the Apostolic See, in which anything has been changed, so that they do not agree with authentic editions approved by the Holy See;

11th. Books by which apocryphal indulgences, or indulgences proscribed or revoked by the Holy See, are disseminated;

12th. Images printed in any manner whatever of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of Angels and Saints, or of other Servants of God, alien from the sense and decrees of the Church (Can. 1399).¹

Propugnantes, that is, those defending by reasons brought forward, those trying to persuade, not merely those asserting or narrating. Foundations of religion are such as the immortality of the human soul, the existence of God, miracles, and truths of this kind; in whatever manner, seriously or with ridicule. Acatholici are all those who do not belong to the Catholic Church. Ex professo, that is, not incidentally, but by design. If it is established that no error concerning this faith is contained in these books, they are not prohibited. Impugnant, those who by reasons brought forward deny a dogma. Detrahunt, they speak badly about someone by taking away his reputation. Lascivious and obscene things: books which inculcate, treat, defend, and teach the nature of lascivious matters, which declare the manner of doing lascivious things; pornographic books, by which in practice harm is brought to morals; wherefore many books in which love affairs are narrated are not understood, although these also are very often prohibited by natural law.

The use of books about which in can. 1399, n. 1, and of books published contrary to the prescription of can. 1391, is permitted only to those who devote themselves in any way to theological or biblical studies, provided that the same books have been published faithfully and integrally, and that in their prolegomena or annotations the dogmas of the Catholic faith are not attacked (Can. 1400). Wherefore editions of the original text and of the ancient Catholic versions of sacred Scripture, even of the Oriental Church, published by any non-Catholics whatever; likewise versions of the same into whatever language, prepared or published by the same; and books published contrary to the prescription of canon 1391, namely versions of the sacred Scriptures in a vernacular language published without due approbation, or without the vigilance of Bishops, and without annotations, are permitted only to those who apply themselves to theological and biblical studies, that is, who are learned men devoted to these sciences, all beginners of sacred theology, and those who are occupied with theology and the Hebrew and Greek language in the schools of Seminaries.

¹ Cf. Addenda, p. 1146, n. 118.