Sex in Contemporary Literature - The Line Between Liberty and Lechery

by M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J., Ph.D.

One of the most serious problems to arise in this country in the last half century has been the production, sale, and reading of morally offensive literature, and since it is a problem that affects in some way or other nearly everybody in the community — parents, teachers, legislators, police, and pastors — it may be useful to discuss it again in the pages of HPR.

In recent years there have appeared a number of well-documented studies amply illustrating the lamentable state of American letters. One of the most devastating criticisms to appear has come from the pen of Pitirim Sorokin, a Harvard professor and one of the nation's leading sociologists. In his American Sex Revolution he has made the following observations:

Not until the twentieth century did American literature become sex-centered and sex-preoccupied, and in its low-grade variety a sham for commercial exploitation. It has now caught up with, and possibly surpassed, the sexualization of European literature. Almost all eminent American writers of the last fifty years — Dreiser, Lewis, O'Neill, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Farrell — and a legion of less notable ones have paid their tribute to sex, either by making it the main topic of many of their works, or, what is perhaps more symptomatic, by devoting to it much attention in works supposedly dealing with problems quite different . . . What is even more significant, many of these authors display the erotic excesses and disloyalties of their characters as perfectly normal . . . Sometimes such illicit relationships are described as a commendable liberation from the antiquated marriage bonds. At other times they are considered hygienic actions freeing individuals from their repressions, psychoneurosis, and other mental disorders. Not infrequently they are heralded as harbingers of a "higher" form of companionate marriage. Rarely, if ever, are they condemned as a dangerous disease. By such treatment, modern literature disinhibits rather than wisely restrains lust. It undermines rather than vitalizes marriage and the family. It weakens rather than reinforces the control of animal propensities by man's higher self. In all these respects, it demoralizes rather than integrates the total personality.¹

Concrete evidence for the sad state of literature has been collected by a number of different authors,² and it has in turn created a considerable amount of concern in various quarters. Albert Fowler, after commenting on the aberrations to be found in native authors such as Caldwell, Hemingway, and Faulkner, and in such imports as Camus and Gide, expresses a fear that the lust, blasphemy, and violence portrayed by these worthies are "apt to breed a scorn of social authority in young and old alike . . . If a Nobel Prize novelist's hero gets away with murder on a whim, the teen-ager asks 'Why can't I?' If his characters can throw morality to the winds without compunction, why can't I?" ³ A contributor to the Christian Century believes that "the great success of Lolita has raised an old problem for Protestants: the use and misuse of sex in literature and art." He believes that "we need a vigorous and authentically biblical ethics of sex morality and obscenity," and "the need is urgent."⁴ Such observations as these, and they could be easily multiplied, could possibly be discounted on the ground that they come from the lips of chronic Cassandras, or at least from individuals who do not understand the meaning and purpose of literature. But the same complaints have been registered by individuals whose esthetic judgments cannot be easily challenged.

Common Denominator of Unbridled Sex

After making an extensive study of man as represented in modern fiction, Edmund Fuller with a touch of grim humor has come to the conclusion that "Sacher-Mosoch and De Sade crumble pitiably before Cain and Spillane, Mailer and Jones, Algren and Tennessee Williams, Paul Bowles and Edmund Wilson. Louys, Petronius, and Ovid are quite o'erstopped. 'The Feast of Trimalchio' is a woman's club luncheon beside some of the parties in current fiction."⁵ Douglas Bush, Gurney Professor of English at Harvard, is of much the same mind. While explaining why he is "getting tired of reading current novels," he states the following:

Although the freedom of utterance that came with or brought about the decay of censorship was hailed as the arrival of American adulthood, a frequent result has been a regression to adolescence; or perhaps the exploitation of unadulterated sex should be called a new toy. It used to be that the curious reader in quest of the risqué had to go to the scrofulous French novel, but how pallid it was and is, compared with the modern native product. If, a century from now, the social historian should read many best sellers of our time, he would be forced to conclude that male and female Americans of this period were wholly engaged in amorous and extramarital affairs, with incidental excursions into business, politics, war, and so forth. For nowadays affairs are as automatic in a novel as corpses in a detective story; the only question is how many are required. The emotional and moral tension that might be set up by an effort at self-control hardly comes into the contemporary view of human nature.⁶

Clifton Fadiman in a rapid survey of six recent novels caustically notes that, "For all their diversity, these writers have one thing in common. Twenty-five years ago either they could not have been published at all, or they would have collided with that paragon of puremindedness, the American cop." After dealing with these authors, he proceeds to put the finger on two of the untouchables, noting that Tennessee Williams has become "highly regarded" for his "application of lyric tenderness to what used to be called degeneracy," and William Faulkner, "the Dixie Dante," for his "subtropical libidinal infernos."⁷

The Line Between Liberty and Lechery

The problem of drawing the line between liberty and lechery that has been created by this rapid change of literary standards has caused endless confusion in legislative bodies and in the courts. It has created problems of conscience that scarcely existed before. This is particularly noticeable in the schools of the country. A parent's protest recently succeeded in banning from the North Miami High School Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 on the grounds that they were "filthy" books.⁸ Even more recently the protest of "eight angry parents" over The Catcher in the Rye brought about its being dropped from Edison High in Tulsa, Oklahoma.⁹ A survey of 290 Michigan senior high school teachers revealed that "'the treatment of sex in some modern novels' is the most serious problem in their teaching of modern works. One-fifth of the teachers also believe that 'unfavorable attitudes on the part of the community, school officials, or parents towards using modern novels' do exist in their particular schools or communities."¹⁰

Various reasons, philosophical, literary, and moral, may be adduced for the preoccupation with sex in modern literature. The spirit of the age is one of scientism. The predominant philosophy for a century has been positivism, now yielding to existentialism. Stress is being continually placed upon experimentation, detailed analyses, and individual experiences. And these trends find their expression in literary works. Because there has been a good deal of reticence in writing about sex in the past, it affords a profitable field for exploitation. Over and above the novelty of the matter, Freudian interpretations of sexual drives and inhibitions seem to reveal hitherto hidden secrets of the mind. Then there is the unquestionable decline in accepted standards of sexual morality. Fundamentally there is a growing skepticism about the very existence of a natural law. A former Protestant minister can write: "Our present obscenity laws have no necessary instinctive basis in human behavior . . . The most specific thing that anthropology can teach us about sex and obscenity is that almost all standards in this field are relative."¹¹ This skepticism soon gives way to doctrinaire hedonism. A professor and a professional writer at a state university suggest that a girl with a problem of "unpopularity" might not have experienced this condition if she had been "taught that sex experience, if it stops short of intercourse, is conducive to growth and valuable as a preparation for marriage."¹² Obviously where such attitudes are prevalent it is quite useless to discuss the morality of sensual literature.

A Problem for Catholics

Though Catholics as followers of Christ are not of the world, they still are in the world, and it would be expecting far too much to believe that they are not at least extrinsically affected by the changing moral standards about them. This is rather strikingly evidenced by the widespread approval given to a type of fiction that a few decades ago would have been considered an abomination. Early in the century, Catholic writers and publishers were probably too conservative in their attitude toward sex. At least this was an opinion expressed in an early issue of this review.¹³ But this state of affairs has suffered a radical change. As a writer in The Homiletic and Pastoral Review noted some years ago, "Anyone who is interested in literature must have noticed that contemporary critics in popular magazines placidly expatiate on books that would not have been mentioned in Catholic family periodicals at the beginning of the century — books that would, at most, have been analyzed in publishers' 'trade journals.'"¹⁴ And the change of attitude is still evolving: "Catholic colleges now prescribe reading that was denounced a generation ago as the work of the devil. Poets are reading their work on Catholic campuses where they were sneered at two decades back because their poetry made no overt obeisance to Christianity, or perhaps because some portion of their work dealt with the condition of man in erotic terms."¹⁵ In the higher echelons of literary culture we even find a certain amount of commendation for Lawrence's "allegedly obscene novel," Lady Chatterley's Lover, though in his works the "exaggeration on the paraphernalia of sex, justified when he resorted to it as a counterattack on excessive reticence, strikes today's reader as slightly hysterical — even obsessive."¹⁶ This is a rather interesting statement in view of the fact that a year before it was made the Grand Bench of the Supreme Court of Japan found the translator and publisher of the Japanese version of Lady Chatterley's Lover guilty of violating the penal statute pertaining to obscenity. In its decision the court declared that "even the finest piece of artistic product can be evaluated as obscene from the ethical and legal point of view." With respect to an author, "be he an artist or a literary man, he may not violate the duty imposed upon the general public, the duty of respecting the feeling of shame and humility and the law predicated upon morality . . . Sincerity of writing does not necessarily nullify the obscene quality of the writing."¹¹

Various motives have been set forth by members of the New Enlightenment for studying the works of Faulkner, Joyce, Greene, Hemingway, and others of the same school. We may read, for example, such opinions as the following: "Our courses in both literature and religion ought to equip future readers with mental stability and moral poise enough to read books that are 'realistic.'" Unless we are familiar with the works of Joyce and Greene, will we not "be dismissed as the 'typical products' of Catholic education — ill-informed and prejudiced"? "The works of modern literary artists, like the works of Shakespeare and of Milton, have their dangers. But if it is true that the contemplation of powerful literary expressions of visions of reality is a necessary component of liberal education, then those dangers must be braved. Otherwise, let the liberal-arts college honestly settle for a training that may be safe but will certainly be nonliberal." The only difficulty with this latter comparison is, of course, that Shakespeare and Milton in their portrayal of the "facts of life" are simply not in the same league at all with an artist like Joyce.

Contra Factum Non Datur Argumentum

In contrast to such opinions as these, there is the conviction on the part of many that much modern fiction does a considerable amount of moral harm even to adults.¹⁸ A recent survey of five hundred Catholic college and university students has shown that not a few do experience temptations with respect to faith and morals in their assigned readings and that they are anxious to receive more guidance in the matter.¹⁹ Even if an individual is not himself morally affected by lurid descriptions of sexual activity, his reading and discussion of works containing such details can be a source of scandal to his weaker brethren who feel compelled to keep up with the Jones's — the James Jones's, that is. Finally, does not the reading of much contemporary "literature" debase rather than deepen the reader's sympathies and promote a kind of insensitivity quite in contrast with the traditional ideals of Christian modesty?²⁰

Split Among Catholic Critics

Because of the spiritual and cultural values at stake, a considerable amount of heat has been generated in the controversies that have risen over the reading and teaching of modern literary "classics." Those who take a rather dim view of them are regarded as "myopic," "immature," or simply as "children." At the same time appeals are made to Cardinal Newman and to the Old and New Testaments in attempts to show that "artists need not squint in an evil world." On the other hand, the more conservative deny the comparisons alleged and are of the opinion that the apologists of the modern mode are either blinkered by their artistic temperament to the dangers involved or that they are not quite candid in their approach to the problem.

To illustrate this point, we might cite the antidote for "priestly prudery" proposed by a Catholic novelist. According to him, "Christ had talked in the vulgar tongue of vulgar symbols: a woman screaming in labor, the fat eunuchs waddling through the bazaars, the woman whom many husbands could not satisfy and who turned to a man who was not her husband . . . He did not shrink from the anointing hands that had caressed the bodies of men in the passion of a thousand nights."²¹ Presumably all this may be taken as a kind of apology for the gratuitous indecencies that permeate his own best seller, but it will hardly sell itself to anyone who has actually read the New Testament or who has perhaps reflected upon St. Paul's stringent advice "not to keep company with fornicators," or who has taken to heart this same Apostle's warning on obscenity: "Let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints."²²

Some idea of the unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable, cleavage of opinion within the Catholic community with respect to individual novelists may be gained by a perusal of a recent study on Graham Greene and the Catholic press.²³ Many of the reviewers cited in this article regard Greene as a great Catholic writer, others consider his works highly objectionable and a source of serious scandal, and finally there is a third opinion expressed, and one which seems to be gaining additional acceptance, that Greene is not so much a Catholic in his outlook as he is Manichean. This diversity of opinion even among "experts" is bound to confuse the average lay reader and particularly students. A greater unanimity of opinion could certainly be desired but, after all the discussion that has already taken place, can it be achieved? Since the matter is fundamentally a moral rather than a literary problem, though the two are certainly connected,²⁴ we can certainly look to the Church for guidance, and I do not believe that we shall be disappointed.

The Teaching of the Church

The opposition of the early Christians to obscene plays, lyrics, and stories is too well known to require much comment. We might cite, however, as typical the opinions of two of the most liberal writers of the early Church:

It is imperative that we neither listen to nor look at nor talk about obscene things . . . Writings that treat of evil deeds must be considered indecent talk, such as the description of adultery or pederasty or similar things.²⁵

If we turn our hearers away from those instructors who teach obscene comedies and licentious iambics, and many other things which neither improve the speaker nor benefit the hearers, we are not in following such a course ashamed to confess what we do.²⁶

Sharp as was this opposition within the Church to licentious literature, it did not find expression in a general decree until the time of the Council of Trent. The seventh of the De Libris Prohibitis Regulae Decem prefixed to the Tridentine Index of 1564, which constituted this law, may be translated as follows:

Books which professedly deal with, narrate, or teach lewd and obscene things are absolutely forbidden, since care must be taken not only of faith but also of morals which are wont to be corrupted by the reading of such books, and those who possess them must be severely punished by their bishops. Ancient books, however, that were written by pagans are allowed on account of the elegance and perfection of their style, but on no account are they to be read by youths.²⁷

This remained the law of the Church until the promulgation of the Apostolic constitution of Leo XIII, Officiorum ac Munerum, on January 25, 1897. The Decreta Generalia contained in this bull replaced the Decem Regulae of Trent. The ninth of these decrees repeats verbatim the general prohibition of obscene books as given by Trent. The tenth rule, however, modifies the exemptions granted in the law:

Classical works of ancient or more recent authors, if they are infected with this stain of turpitude, on account of the elegance and perfection of their style are permitted only to those who are excused by reason of their office or teaching; but on no account are they to be given to youths or young men to translate or read unless they have been carefully expurgated. ²⁸

The present law of the Church with respect to obscene books is contained in the Codex Iuris Canonici, which went into effect on May 19, 1918. This legislation is more severe than either that of Trent or of Leo XIII. It repeats again verbatim the substance of the earlier laws, but allows for no exceptions with respect to either the subject or the object of the law: Books which professedly deal with, narrate, or teach lewd and obscene things are ipso iure forbidden.²⁹ The exact interpretation of this law involves a number of delicate questions, the consideration of which must be postponed to some future date. At the present time, when we are considering the moral rather than the juridical implications of the law, it should be sufficient to note some of the authors whom canonists and moral theologians have cited as coming under its letter and not merely its spirit: Ovid, Juvenal, Boccaccio, Voltaire, Heine, Byron, Zola, and Huysmans. This does not mean that all of their works are to be thus stigmatized, but such opinions will probably give little comfort to those who would so interpret ex professo as to empty the law of its meaning.

Since the promulgation of the Code, the Holy See has expressed deep concern on a number of occasions over the increase of licentious literature. The most important of these pronouncements is contained in the Instruction of the Holy Office on Sensual and Sensual-Mystic Literature of May 3, 1927, which has been prefixed to subsequent editions of the Roman Index. After decrying the damage to souls wrought by "literature which exploits sensuality and lust, or even a certain lascivious mysticism," the instruction notes that "literary works, which exert so great an influence upon many, especially the young, would be able to afford innocent pleasure and even elevate the morals of the readers if only they kept within the bounds of decency, which certainly are not too narrow." But unfortunately, as

this abundance of books which combine a frivolous fascination with immorality is the cause of a very great loss of souls. For many writers depict immodesties in flaming imagery; relate the most obscene details sometimes guardedly, sometimes openly and shamelessly, without the least regard for the requirements of modesty; they describe even the worst carnal vices with subtle analysis, and adorn them with all the brilliancy and allurements of style, to such a degree that nothing in the field of morals is left inviolate. It is easy to see how harmful all this is, especially to young people, in whom the fire of youth makes chastity more difficult . . . Let no one make these excuses: that many of those books have a truly admirable brilliance and elegance of style; that they are remarkable for inculcating a psychology in accord with modern discoveries; that the lascivious bodily pleasures are reprobated in as much as they are represented in their true light as most foul, or are sometimes shown to be connected with qualms of conscience, or in as much as it is shown how often the basest pleasures give way at last to the sorrow of a sort of repentance. For neither elegance of style nor medical or philosophical lore — if indeed these things are to be found in that sort of writing — nor the intention of the authors, whatever it may be, can prevent the readers, who owing to the corruption of nature are usually very weak and much inclined to impurity, from being gradually enmeshed in the allurements of those unclean pages, from becoming depraved in mind and heart, and finally from throwing away the reigns that curb their passions, falling into all kinds of sins . . . As everyone knows, the Church has already provided by general law that all books which are tainted with immorality, and which of set purpose or openly attack the integrity of morals, be regarded as forbidden just as if they had actually been placed on the Index of forbidden books. It follows that persons who without due permission read a book that is undoubtedly salacious, even though it is not condemned by name by the ecclesiastical authorities, commit a mortal sin. And since in this most important matter false and disastrous opinions are current among the faithful, Ordinaries of places must see to it that especially pastors and their assistants give attention to this matter and give the needed instruction to the people.

The document concludes with an injunction to the effect that "all Archbishops, Bishops, and other Ordinaries of places, on the occasion of their diocesan report, should make known to the Holy See what measures they have taken and put into execution against lascivious books."³⁰

Pius XI's encyclical letter On the Christian Education of Youth, which was issued on December 31, 1929, contains a number of significant norms with respect to the teaching of literature in Catholic schools:

In such a school, the study of the vernacular and of classical literature will do no damage to moral virtue. There the Christian teacher will imitate the bee, which takes the choicest part of the flower and leaves the rest, as St. Basil teaches in his discourse to youths on the study of the classics. Nor will this necessary precaution, suggested also by the pagan Quintilian, in any way hinder the Christian teacher from gathering and turning to profit whatever there is of real worth in the systems and methods of our modern times, mindful of the Apostle's advice: "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." . . . It is no less necessary to direct and watch the education of the adolescent, "soft as wax to be molded into vice," in whatever other environment he may happen to be, removing occasions of evil and providing occasions for good in his recreations and social intercourse; for "evil communications corrupt good manners." . . . How often must parents and educators bewail the corruption of youth brought about by the modern theater and the vile book!"³¹

An objection could be raised to the effect that Pius XI was here concerned with the education of adolescents and not with that of college students who can profit by a stronger diet. Allowance certainly should be made for a difference in age, but this does not mean that the respect which the pagan poet declared is owed to youth may be thrown to the winds by the assignment of readings to which they or their parents will legitimately object.³²

In his public allocutions, Pius XII not infrequently drew the attention of his audience to the dangers inherent in immoral literature. One of the earliest and most detailed of these warnings is contained in an address to newly married couples on August 7, 1940. In the course of his talk he proposed the following dialog:

"I am no longer a child," a young lady will explain, "and I know life, and have therefore the wish and the right to know it still better." But does not the poor girl realize that her talk is like that of Eve when confronted with the forbidden fruit? And does she think that to know, love, and enjoy life it is necessary to investigate all its abuses and ugliness? "I am no longer a child," a young man also will say, "and at my age sensual descriptions and voluptuous scenes have no effect." Is he sure? If it should be true, it would be an indication of an unconscious perversion, the result of bad reading already indulged . . . The danger of bad reading is, under some aspects even worse than that of evil companions, because it can make itself more treacherously familiar.³³

Again it could possibly be objected that Pius XII was aiming his remarks simply at cheap pornography and not at the work of recognized authors, but this would not fit the general tenor of his whole talk. Certainly such an interpretation cannot be given to the official approval which he gave on April 3, 1952, to the monitum which the Holy Office attached to its condemnation of the opera omnia of Moravia. This warning reads as follows:

On this occasion the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Fathers, deploring the immense harm that is done to souls, first by the unrestrained license to publish and diffuse books, booklets, and periodicals which of set purpose narrate, describe, or teach things which are lascivious and obscene, and also by the fatal eagerness to read such matter indiscriminately, decided to issue the following warnings:

To all the faithful: that they remember their very grave obligation to abstain entirely from the reading of such books and periodicals;

To those who have charge of the instruction and education of youth: that, conscious of their grave responsibility, they keep their charges away from such writings entirely, as from an insidious poison;

Finally, to those who in virtue of their office have the responsibility of regulating the morality of citizens: that they do not permit such writings, which strive to subvert the very principles and foundations of natural morality, to be published and distributed.³⁴

Some surprise has been expressed at the condemnation of Moravia:

Several centuries from now many may wonder why Alberto Moravia was ever considered important enough to be placed on the Index, but Rome had a good reason for warning all, and especially the Catholics of Italy, of the distressing effects his books were having, with their despairing commentary on modern life.³⁵

But even more surprising perhaps is how anyone acquainted with world literature could deem Italy's most influential novelist as "unimportant," or how his condemnation could be simply attributed to "the distressing effects his books were having, with their despairing commentary on modern life." The Holy Office practically never gives a reason for its condemnation of an author. If in this instance it has added a monitum drawing formal attention to the ecclesiastical ban on obscene literature, the only conclusion to be reached is that in the opinion of this sacred congregation Moravia's works fall substantially under that law.

Notes

1 P. A. Sorokin, The American Sex Revolution (Boston, 1956), pp. 23-24. See also the judgment of R. Spiazzi, O.P., in "De Monito in ephemerides et libros malos," Monitor Ecclesiasticus 77 (1952), p. 562. After commenting on the general degradation of literary standards throughout the world, he goes on to note: Inter omnes praesertim quidam fabularum scriptores Americani excellunt ut Cain, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, Caldwell (de quo dictum est ipsum in suis fabulis personas corruptas omnes effinxisse!).

2 See, for example, R. E. Fitch, The Decline of Sex³ (New York, 1957), and his "Secular Images of Man in Contemporary Literature," Religious Education 53 (1958), pp. 83-91; P. A. Duhamel, "Love in the Modern Novel," Catholic World 191 (1960), pp. 31-35; Paul Blanshard, "Sex and Obscenity," in The Right to Read (Boston, 1955), pp. 138-167. With respect to the May, 1955, selection of the Book-of-the Month Club, Robert Ruark's Something of Value, Mr. Blanshard notes: "Specific descriptions of rape and sexual orgies which in 1930 would have disqualified a work as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection occur so frequently that it would be a long and tedious task merely to list them" (p. 145).

3 A. Fowler, "Can Literature Corrupt?" Modern Age 3 (1959), pp. 131-132.

4 H. G. Cox, Jr., "Obscenity and Protestant Ethics," Christian Century, April 8, 1959, pp. 415-417; see also Simeon Stylites in the same issue, p. 439: "The Washroom School of Fiction."

5 Edmund Fuller, Man in Modern Fiction: Some Minority Opinions on Contemporary American Writing (New York, 1958), p. 88.

6 Douglas Bush, "Sex in the Modern Novel," Atlantic Monthly 203 (1959), p. 73.

7 Clifton Fadiman, "What Happened to Sex?", Holiday, August, 1959, pp. 8-11.

8 Commonweal 72 (1960), p. 80. The fact that the editors of this journal found it "discouraging that anybody would be able to come to such a conclusion about these novels" is not much to the point since similar objections to these two works have been lodged elsewhere. For Orwell's 1984, see the article cited in note 10.

9 "Rye on the Rocks," Time,/i>, May 9, 1960, p. 67.

10 H. E. Hand, "Sex in the Modern Novel — A Teaching Problem," English Journal 48 (1959), p. 473.

11 Paul Blanshard, The Right to Read, p. 140.

12 H. H. Remmers and D. H. Radler, The American Teenager (New York, 1957), p. 75.

13 C. G. Herbermann, "The Present Conditions of Catholic Literature," Homiletic Monthly and Catechist 6 (1905-06), p. 717 (known later as The Homiletic and Pastoral Review).

14 Kilian J. Hennrich, O.F.M.Cap., "Critics Argue Amicably," The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 45 (1944-45), p. 425.

15 H. A. Kenny in a review of Maritain's Responsibility of the Artist in The Critic 18 (April-May, 1960), pp. 26-27.

16 Marvin Magalaner, "D. H. Lawrence Today," Commonweal 70 (1959), pp. 275-276.

17 See A. L. Goodhart, "The Japanese Law of Obscenity," Law Quarterly Review 75 (1959), p. 184.

18 See, for example, Kilian J. Hennrich, O.F.M.Cap., "Putting an End to Compromising," The Homiletic and Pastoral Review 45 (1944), pp. 117-121; J. S. Kennedy, "Our People's Reading," American Ecclesiastical Review 110 (1944), pp. 270-277.

19 J. F. Harvey, O.S.F.S., "Censorship and Moral Evaluation in the Catholic College," Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Convention of the Society of Catholic Teachers of Sacred Scripture (1959), pp. 90-93.

20 See, for example, Bernard Bergonzi, "Morals and the Novel," Blackfriars 39 (1958), p. 358: ". . . the state of affairs that most of us have probably experienced at some time or another of hearing our non-literary friends or relations complaining that some novel, which we have found more or less unexceptionable, is scandalously immoral. There is no need for self-gratification, of course, in the degree of sophistication that we may have acquired in several years' habitual experience of literature. But it does underline the fact that almost any book demands its right audience. But it is hardly practicable for the authors to see whose hands their books may or may not fall into."

21 Morris L. West, The Devil's Advocate (New York, 1959), p. 83.

22 I Cor. 5, 9; Ephes. 5, 3.

23 D. P. Costello, "Graham Greene and the Catholic Press," Renascence 12 (1959-60), pp. 3-28.

24 Jacques Maritain, "Art and Morality," in The Responsibility of the Artist (New York, 1960), pp. 21-45, grants only an extrinsic and indirect connection between art and morality, which is true if one considers only the useful arts, but I think there is a greater connection demanded between morality and any of the fine arts.

25 Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 2.6.

26 Origen, Contra Celsum 3.58.

27 For the Latin text, see H. J. Schroeder, O.P., Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent³ (St. Louis, 1955) pp. 547-548.

28 For the Latin text, see Index Librorum Prohibitorum Leonis XIII³ (Rome, 1911), p. 9.

29 Can. 1399 §9. Ipso iure prohibentur libri qui res lascivas seu obscenas ex professo tractant, narrant, aut docent. For the suppression of the exemption see A. Vermeersch, S.J., Theologiae Moralis 3 (Rome, 1948), pp. 546-47.

30 This instruction, which should be read in its entirety, may be found in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis 19 (1927), 186-189. The translation is taken from T. L. Bouscaren, S.J., Canon Law Digest 1⁷ (Milwaukee, 1950), pp. 687-691.

31 Acta Apostolicae Sedis 21 (1929), pp. 75457, translated in Three Great Encyclicals (New York, 1931), pp. 65-68.

32 Juvenal 14.47: maxima debetur puero reverential.

33 The Holy Father Speaks to Newlyweds, edited by Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B. (Washington, 1943), pp. 49-53.

34 Acta Apostolicae Sedis 44 (1952), p. 432, translated by T. L. Bouscaren, S.J., The Canon Law Digest 3 (Milwaukee, 1954), pp. 574-575.

35 H. C. Gardiner, S.J., Catholic Viewpoint on Censorship (Garden City, New York. 1958), p. 53.

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See Part II of this article, "Modern "Classics" and Condemned Works

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