End of the imprimatur

One way that the Roman Catholic Church has traditionally tried to prevent the spread of error and heresy is by the use of the imprimatur. According to canon law, any book by a Catholic layman or cleric dealing with faith or morals must be cleared by a diocesan censor and approved for publication by a bishop, normally shown by the Latin word imprimatur -- meaning "Let it be printed." In the postconciliar church, any kind of censorship seems anachronistic, and there is a wide spread feeling among publishers and theologians that the whole system ought to be abandoned.

The main complaint against prior censorship is that it is an unjustified restraint on intellectual freedom and encourages timidity in theological speculation. The imprimatur itself has been put to uses that verge on the absurd:

for example, the archdiocese of Mil waukee once affixed the approval of Archbishop William E. Cousins to a notebook in which priests could record the dates and hours of Masses said --even though the volume consisted of blank pages. Under church law, an imprimatur may be granted by the diocese in which an author lives, or where the publishing firm is located, or where the book is actually printed. Since bishops and their censors vary considerably in openness to new ideas, publishers frequently have been forced to display diplomatic ingenuity in finding a prelate willing to approve a touchy book.

Breadth to Scholars. In Italy, reli gious publishers have their own unofficial catalogue of bishops, distinguishing the easy marks from tough critics. Ital ian imprimatur seekers have found that bishops of smaller dioceses tend to be much faster in approving books. For that reason, the Sons of Mary Immaculate, who operate a huge publishing house, and a bookstore only a few hun dred yards from the Vatican, get most of their imprimaturs from Bishop Luigi Morstabilini of Brescia, in northern Italy. A theologian himself, Morstabilini has been discovered by other publishers as well, issues an imprimatur every two or three days. "Perhaps in contrast to other bishops," he says, "I recognize that it is necessary to allow a feeling of breadth toward serious scholars."

Playing the imprimatur game can be as delicate as finding a publisher for a first novel. A classic case involved The Layman in the Church, a collection of essays from Commonweal magazine that was published by Herder and Herder in 1962. Although the articles had caused no great stir when printed in magazine form, the late Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York refused to give his imprimatur; because Spellman said no, Herder and Herder was turned down by three other bishops -- of Philadelphia, Rockville Centre, N.Y., and Harrisburg, Pa.--before getting approval from the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Since then, Herder has followed the lead of another Catholic firm, Sheed & Ward, in having its books printed in Vermont --for the sole reason that it can usual ly count on clearing them with open-minded Bishop Robert Joyce of Burlington.

Heresy Charges. The imprimatur is no guarantee that a book will not be attacked as heretical. Last year Bishop Joyce granted Sheed & Ward an imprimatur for Jesuit Biblical Scholar John L. McKenzie's Authority in the Church (TIME, May 13, 1966). Although the book was later honored by the Catholic Press Association as the year's outstanding American theological work, Archbishop Robert E. Lucey of San Antonio recently denounced it as "openly heretical" on at least two counts. McKenzie retorted that Lucey should either withdraw his complaints or make formal charges of heresy to Rome.

More and more often, Catholic authors and publishers are simply not bothering to ask for imprimaturs, especially for books--like those attacking clerical celibacy--that would not be likely to get them anyway. So far at least, there have been no concerted complaints from the hierarchy (though bishops still occasionally warn their flocks against books they dislike), and students of church law agree that the rules on imprimaturs would simply fall into disuse if enough publishers and writers ignored them.

That would be true even in Italy. Rome said not a word recently when the Italian publishing house of Mondadori published a collection of essays called Is God Dead? without any indication that the book had an imprimatur.

Among the contributors were Canon Charles Moeller and Monsignor Pietro Pavan, both of them officials of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which sets the rules for censorship in the church.

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