[20] I.
Society as we now find it, and as far back as history reveals it to us, lives and moves, and has hitherto lived and moved, under the influence of the two-fold principle of Church and State. It is not simply the State, nor is it simply the Church, but it is made up of a union of both Church and State.[1] Association for the pursuit of temporal happiness gives rise to the State; association in a community of spiritual goods for the pursuit of eternal happiness gives rise to the Church.[2] Just as a man is not all body nor all soul, but the intimate union of body and soul, even so is society composed of the intimate and inseparable union of a temporal organization and a spiritual informing principle. For what the soul is to the body, religion is to the State. "No State," says Walter, "can subsist without religion, which fills and interpenetrates every sphere of life with the sense of the obligation of duty. Religion, which respects and maintains every right of high and low, of strong and weak, is the conservative element of society. . . . . By the strength of character which she forms, she preservers the youth of nations, and when they fall away and decay, keeps them from the withering up of mind and heart. Religion is the groundwork of family life, and of the purity and piety nurtured therein. . . . . She brings rich and poor nearer together, urging upon the rich sympathy and active help to the poor, and instilling into the poor gratitude and consolation. Thus she softens every condition of life, and teaches man that he can be elevated and ennobled by submission. Religion, then, is the true bond which holds the State together, makes it strong, and saves it from degeneracy."[3] Now, religion without a Church is a mere abstraction. "The Church is the external manifestation, the realization and the expression of the Christian religion in an independent organism."[4] The early Fathers recognized this intimate union of Church and State. St. Isidor of Pelusium, wrote from his hermitage in Egypt: "The government of the world rests on kinghood [sic] and on priesthood; although the two differ widely—for one is as the body, the other as the soul—they are nevertheless destined to one end, the [21] well-being of their subjects."[1] And St. John Chrysostom boldly carries out the metaphor of soul and body to its limits: "The Church," he says, "is above the State, in the same way the soul is above the body."[2]
II.
Going back to pagan days we find that philosophers never dreamed of separating religion from the State. Plato strives to impress the citizens of his ideal republic with the necessity of keeping the Divine law if they would preserve the State: "God, as the old tradition declares, holding in His hand the beginning, middle and end of all that is, moves, according to His nature, in a straight line towards the accomplishment of His end. Justice always follows Him, and is the punisher of those who fall short of the Divine law. To that law he who would be happy holds fast, and follows it in all humility and order. . . . . Wherefore, seeing human things are thus ordered, . . . . every man ought to make up his mind that he will be one of the followers of God. Henceforth all citizens must be profoundly convinced that the gods are lords and rulers of all that exists, that all events depend upon their word and will, and that mankind is largely indebted to them."[3] Aristotle, with less unction, though not with less conviction, pronounces worship to be the first of the six leading administrations without which the State cannot subsist, assigns the first rank to the priesthood, would have special edifices dedicated to worship, and the fourth part of the soil and land devoted to purposes of religion.[4]
The relations of Church and State vary with times and occasions. In the gentile world the Church was absorbed by the State. It was the tool and instrument of the State. The number and nature of the household gods were regulated by the State. The ceremonies connected with the worship of them were enjoined by the State. The titular deities of the State were carefully served; they were to be placated in times of calamity, appealed to for aid in times of war; their ire was to be appeased in the hour of defeat, or they were to receive public thanksgiving in the hour of victory. Every ceremony was legislated for by the State. The ruler was also the Pontifex Maximus. He united in himself the plenitude of civil and priestly power. In all else was the State equally paramount. The family was absorbed in the State. The individual lived for the State, continued to breathe by favor of the State, and died when the State so decreed. The State was the source whence all things drew the breath of life, and the seat of all wisdom and authority.
[22] Such was the condition of things when Christianity first dawned upon the world's horizon, and revealed another order of things. It revealed to man a kingdom other than the kingdoms of this world, to which he had a flawless title. It taught him the value of his immortal soul, redeemed by the blood of Christ. It taught him how to pray and how to overcome his passions. How much there was in this teaching we will let Döllinger explain: "When," he says, "the attention of a thinking heathen was directed to the new religion spreading in the Roman Empire, the first thing to strike him as extraordinary would be, that a religion of prayer was superseding the religion of ceremonies and invocations of gods; that it encouraged all, even the humblest and most uneducated to pray, or, in other words, to meditate and exercise the mind in self-scrutiny and contemplation of God. . . . . This region of Christian metaphysics was open even to the mind of one who had no intellectual culture before conversion. In this school of prayer he learned what philosophy had declared to be as necessary as it was difficult, and only attainable by few—to know himself as God knew him. And from that self-knowledge prayer carried him on to self-mastery. If the heathen called upon his gods to gratify his passions, for the Christian tranquility of soul, moderation, and purifying of the affections were at once the preparation and the fruit of prayer. And thus, prayer became a motive-power of moral renewal and inward civilization, to which nothing else could be compared for efficacy."[1] Justin Martyr called attention to this benign influence of Christianity in his day: "We Christians contribute most to the tranquillity [sic] of the State, since we teach that God governs all; that the evil-doer, the avaricious, the assassin, as well as the virtuous man are known to Him; that each one who passes out of this life will receive an eternal reward or an eternal punishment according to his deserts. Now, if all believed these truths, assuredly none would continue a moment longer in sin, but all would restrain themselves, and strive to do right, in order finally to obtain the promised reward and to escape punishment. For those who do evil know that they can escape from your laws; but if they had learnt, and were fully convinced, that nothing, not an action, nor even a thought can remain hidden from God, they would, at least from fear of punishment, strive to do right."[2] In this manner did Christianity become a new civilizing element. Now, society is perfect in proportion as the individuals composing society are perfect. But the perfection of the individual consists in submission to the Divine law. "When we [23] revere and honor God," says the Angelical Doctor, "our mind is subject to Him, and in this our perfection consists. For everything is perfected by its subjection to that which is above it, as the body when it is vivified by the soul."[1]
III.
Let us now endeavor to make clear to ourselves the meaning both of Church and of State. We will begin with the Church. The Church is an organism. It is a visible embodiment of Divine influences addressing itself with authority to the souls of men in the name of God and for an eternal and supernatural end. It is the visible custodian of the natural law and the revealed or positive law. It has not created or invented or discovered these laws. They are eternal. The Church could not change them if it would. But every church, be it true or false, speaks to man in the name of Divine authority, and every true member of that Church recognizes the Divine sanction. A church without such sanction and such authority is meaningless. A church on a human basis, promulgating a purely human doctrine, looking no higher than human reason, bears upon it the impress of its own fallible, short-lived nature. It is branded with the seal of imposition. Not the combined genius of a Comte, a Littré and a Frederick Harrison can make the church of positivism other than a religious by-play. Gautama and Mohammed established their doctrines and built up their churches only in the name of God and as His ministers. Had they presented themselves upon a purely human basis they would have passed away unheeded. But they were in earnest; they believed themselves sent of God; therefore, they were accepted for what they represented themselves to be, and accordingly they succeeded. The Protestant synod of Alain, in 1620, excommunicated by virtue of the Divine authority which it conceived to be vested in it: "We, ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, whom God hath furnished with spiritual arms . . . to whom the eternal Son of God hath given the power to bind and to loose upon earth, declare that what we shall bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven."[2] The Puritan fathers would not and dare not make laws opposed to the teachings of their church. They recognized its supremacy. Believing that they alone were right and the favored ones of God's providence, they stood out against the whole world and persecuted and outlawed all who presumed to hold religious opinions different from the tenets which they believed to be God's [24] own teaching. They stood upon an elevated but a very narrow spiritual plane of religious opinion.
Of course, not everybody speaking as the mouthpiece of the Divine is inspired. Brigham Young made thousands believe that he had a divinely-inspired mission; few believe in the Divinity of that mission to-day. But we are not here concerned with determining the notes by which true inspiration is to be distinguished from pure illusion and imposition. We are simply calling attention to the fact that every church has meaning only by reason of its Divine origin and the Divine authority in whose name it teaches. We will define the Christian Church as it appears to us in its oldest and most authentic form.
Christ organized the Church. The Apostles were the first bishops. From the beginning was a hierarchy established. Peter was made head of the Church and was recognized as such by his colleagues; priests and deacons, and the other clerical orders were established. The Church as thus organized is endowed with a three-fold power; namely, the power to administer the sacraments, the power of jurisdiction and the power of teaching. Of the seven sacraments recognized by the Church as the seven channels instituted by Christ, by which His grace is conveyed to the soul and man is raised up into the sphere of the supernatural, five can be administered by none other than a bishop or priest. Therefore it has been with the most scrupulous care that succession in the orders of bishops and priests has been preserved in the Church from the days of the Apostles. And so the faithful of every period in this visible organism, the Church, have had these seven sacraments and a duly ordained and properly authorized priesthood to administer them.
The Church has a power of jurisdiction, that is to say, she has the right to exercise authority over Christians in those things which belong to religion. This power flows directly from the authority of the Divine Founder. It alone makes licit the sacramental power of the clergy. Indeed, no pastoral act may be performed within the Church without participation in ecclesiastical authority. That authority may be delegated or it may belong to the office for which one has been ordained. But the main point to hold in view is this: That no jot or tittle of ecclesiastical jurisdiction is derived from the laity within the Church or from the State or from any source other than the Divine authority on which the Church is founded. Therefore, wherever there is lay or State interference in the matter of the sacraments, or of doctrine or of religious jurisdiction, there is an element foreign to the Divine institution established by Christ. A Church, for instance, that would be organized and legislated for by Congress could [25] scarcely command the respect and submission of men. It might, indeed, be a very wise human institution, but no one would dare call its Congressional enactments the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Equally human and equally fallible would be a Church created by act of Parliament.
The jurisdiction of the Church is, then, the jurisdiction of a visible independent organism, and is judicial, legislative and executive. She has the right to make laws within her own spiritual sphere of action, and to execute those laws. She has the right to impose upon her members the obligation of accepting without reserve her declarations concerning faith and morals under ecclesiastical penalties. As the custodian of the natural law and of the revealed law, she is entitled to interpret and administer them in religious matters. She has, moreover, the power to make and to enforce laws of her own. These laws, be it remembered, contain within themselves so much of a purely human element that they may be changed, or dispensed with, or abrogated. Thus it is that in certain countries certain holidays of obligation have been abrogated. Thus it is that the Church daily grants dispensation regarding marriage within certain degrees of kindred. In like manner does she dispense persons from vows o commute their vows under certain circumstances and with sufficient reason. All this she could not do with regard to the Divine law, whether it be natural or positive. She could not, for instance, permit or tolerate an act of injustice as between man and man, nor could she allow her highest dignitaries, any more than her humblest layman, to injure their neighbor's reputation by any act, overt or covert, direct or indirect; nor in such supposition could she dispense them from making such reparation as is within their power. She cannot change the eternal principle of right and wrong.[1] All these are primary truths.
IV.
Next, consider the teaching power of the Church. Her Divine Founder gave her the mission to go forth and teach all nations in His name. He that heareth you heareth me. This mission extends to all subjects bearing upon religion. It includes both the natural and the positive law of God, as well as the revealed truths and mysteries of faith. The teaching power resides in its plenitude in the Roman pontiff as it did in his predecessor, the Apostle Peter. He is unerring in defining maters pertaining to faith and [26] morals. His infallibility does not extend beyond this domain. In all matters of political action or of private opinion the Pope is as liable to err as any layman equally instructed. An ecumenical council is also unerring when defining matters of faith and morals; but it is only the papal approval that renders the council ecumenical and stamps its decrees with the seal of authority. The teaching power is communicated to bishops and priests, but not in its plenitude. They may err in their teachings, even as they may be culpable in their conduct. Their words have authority only in proportion to the accuracy with which they transmit the doctrines of the Church. Personally, the weight of their utterance depends on the learning and the soundness of judgment they bring to bear upon their subject-matter.
And here, we would dwell upon a grave misconception entertained of our mental attitude as Catholics by those not of the body. We give the misconception as stated by an American writer who would not voluntarily do us an injustice. Speaking of the Church in America this writer says: "There is almost as much dissent, agnosticism, free thought—call it what you will—among educated Catholics as among other people in America. This is at once the source of peculiar strength and of unique weakness to the Catholic Church."[1] We do not see how this can be a source of anything real, since it is a condition of things that does not exist outside of the writer's mind. We Catholics—the ignorant layman no less than the learned theologian—all profess the same creed and hold by the same truths of faith, upon the same ground of belief, namely, upon the veracity of God revealing them to us through the Holy Roman Catholic Church. This and nothing more. The learned theologian may attempt to account for the faith that is in him; he may seek to reconcile it with his reason; he may answer objections raised against certain articles of his faith; but he cannot pare away or minimize that faith; he cannot drop a single jot or tittle of that faith without ceasing to be Catholic. He accepts it all—neither more nor less—with the same sincerity with which his unlettered brother accepts it. The mental attitude of Catholics toward their faith is simply one of absolute certitude. In matters of opinion, or of credence, or of speculation, or of mere probability, we exercise our own judgments like the rest of men on those same matters, and come to our own conclusions according to personal bias and the tone of our intellectual training. Even in matters of faith our explanations of the various articles of our creed may vary and some may even be erroneous. There are men, for instance, who find the presence of design in the material [27] world a strong argument for the existence of God; others refuse to be convinced by that argument, but find their strongest demonstration in a recognition of the moral sense. But it is clearly an abuse of terms to call our honest divergence of opinion concerning all matters upon which we are free to diverge, free thinking or agnosticism in the accepted meaning of these words. You cannot conceive a Catholic agnostic. As well might you think a positive negation. One term is as meaningless as the other. You might conceive a minister of the Church, whether priest or bishop, continuing to exercise the functions of his ministry long after he has ceased to believe in their efficacy, but sooner or later he shirks the discipline of his position, and the world takes at his worth the man who sails under false colors or who dares not assume the responsibility of his convictions. Now, it would be a vile slander upon the Catholic priesthood in America—and the writer from whom we have quoted would be the last to put it upon them intentionally—to say that any number of them were praying to a God in whose existence they did not believe, or administering sacraments in whose efficacy they had no faith.
Our Catholic writers are of all shades of opinion upon the issues of the day, and they may be so without incurring ecclesiastical censure. Take, for instance, the burning questions of modern science and modern thought. Some there are who think that as children of the age it is their duty to face the problems of the age and effect their solution as best they may. Others, again, are alarmed at the hostile attitude of certain leaders of modern thought towards the Church, and, identifying the person with the cause, condemn the whole without a fair hearing. They seek refuge in extreme rigidity of doctrine. In their opinion the Decalogue is incomplete, the sermon on the mount too mild, and Rome too lenient. The non-Catholic world is only too prone to identify this class of writers with the Church. Their extreme views bring odium upon religion. They seem incapable of learning from the blunders of the past. They speak and write as though the Inquisition had never made Galileo say that the earth did not move round the sun, or the Sorbonne had not dictated to Buffon what he should write concerning this world's formation. Every educated Catholic knows that neither the Inquisition nor the Sorbonne is the Church, and though both were formidable bodies, they had no claim to infallibility. Why should these over-hasty writers attempt to force a repetition of such blunders? They are misleading, and are not to be considered in any respect representative. You will find other Catholic writers holding views as broad as theirs are narrow. The children of the Church have great liberty of action and opinion. It is the liberty of children in a well-regulated [28] household. They know the limit beyond which they must not pass.
The doctrinal life of the Church consists in this, that she at all times and under all circumstances preserves unity of doctrine in the midst of multiplicity of opinion. The doctrine she teaches to-day she has always and everywhere and to all men taught from the beginning. This is the secret of her strength and her endurance as a teaching body. Permit me to quote for you an impartial witness to the fact. Speaking of the characteristic of absolute infallibility Mr. Mallock says: "Any supernatural religion that renounces its claim to this, it is clear can profess to be a semi-revelation only. It is a hybrid thing, partly natural and partly supernatural, and it thus practically has all the qualities of a religion that is wholly natural. In so far as it professes to be revealed, it of course professes to be infallible; but if the revealed part be in the first place hard to distinguish, and in the second place hard to understand—if it may mean many things, and many of those things contradictory—it might just as well have been never made at all. To make it in any sense an infallible revelation, or in other words, a revelation at all, to us, we need a power to interpret the testament that shall have equal authority with that testament itself. Simple as this truth seems, mankind have been a long time learning it. Indeed, it is only in the present day that its practical meaning has come generally to be recognized. But now, at this moment, upon all sides of us, history is teaching it to us by an example so clearly that we can no longer mistake it. That example is Protestant Christianity, and the condition to which, after three centuries, it is now visibly bringing itself. It is at last beginning to exhibit to us the true results of the denial of infallibility to a religion that professes to be supernatural. We are at last beginning to see in it neither the purifier of a corrupted revelation, nor the corrupter of a pure revelation, but the practical denier of all revelation whatsoever. It is fast evaporating into a mere natural theism, and is thus showing us what, as a governing power, natural theism is. Let us look at England, Europe and America and consider the condition of the entire Protestant world. Religion, it is true, we shall find in it; but it is religion from which not only the supernatural element is disappearing, but in which the natural element is fast becoming nebulous. It is, indeed, growing, as Mr. Leslie Stephen says it is, into a religion of dreams. All its doctrines are growing vague as dreams, and like dreams their outlines are forever changing. . . . . There is hardly any conceivable aberration of moral license that has not in some quarter or other embodied itself into a rule of life and claimed to be the proper outcome of Protestant [29] Christianity."[1] So far Mr. Mallock. His remarks make it clear to us that a church regarding itself as Divine in its origin and inspiration and at the same time not unerring as a guide would be a self contradiction.
But there are limitations to the teaching mission of the Church. The fulfilment [sic] of Christ's promise to be with His Church and to guide and direct her in her mission extends only to those things for which she has been commissioned. She has no mission to teach purely secular science. She may utilize the sciences she finds her children possessed of, and speak to them in the language of that science, but she never descends to take issue upon every new scientific theory. Should science trespass upon her domain and assert anything opposed to her fixed and immutable principles she cautions her children against such teachings. Individual members of the Church may dispute over certain issues, but the Church bides her own time with the patient tranquility of one who has outlived many disputes and seen many brilliant and aggressive theories dashed to spray at her feet. And when science shall have winnowed the chaff from the grain and human reason shall have become possessed of an additional fact or an additional law of nature, the Church shall be found precisely where she stood before the discovery. She is not the one who has been obliged to shift her lines. It is in this attitude of the Church that we have the clue to her whole bearing towards science in the course of its development and its variations.
Here it may be asked: Since the teaching mission of the Church is thus circumscribed, why does she make such persistent efforts to control education in all its roots and branches? To this we would say: The Church cannot recognize any system of training for the child from which religion is excluded. With her religion is an essential factor in education. Among Christian peoples the child has always combined Christian doctrine and Christian practices with purely secular teaching in the school-room. The child of Christian parents is entitled to this Christian education. To impose upon him any system of education calculated to weaken his hold upon the Christian heritage into which he was born, were an act of gross injustice. Our Catholic clergy, as the pastors of souls, answerable to God for those confided to their care, are in duty bound to see that the children of their parish are instructed in the doctrines and practices of that Church which they believe to be the pillar and the ground of Truth. This can be properly and efficiently done only by means of a system of education especially provided for the purpose. Given a clergy believing in the Divine [30] origin of their religion, believing that religion to be so great a boon that they would gladly die for it, believing that unless the child is at an early age taught religious doctrine and religious practices he runs the risk of growing up wholly indifferent to the priceless value of his Christian heritage, and you cannot conceive that clergy holding any other attitude towards a purely secular education for their Catholic children than one of hostility. It were a betrayal of their trust, an abandonment of the birthright of those confided to them, to acquiesce in a school system from which Catholic doctrine, Catholic prayer, and Catholic practices of devotion had been banished. Therefore it is that the Church binds the consciences of pastors and of people to keep their Catholic children aloof from such schools, and to establish parochial schools whenever and wherever it is possible.
Her mission to teach gives the Church the right to safeguard the child against any influence that would be injurious to faith and morals. Hers is the right to see that the books made use of, the men and women imparting instruction, and the character of the instruction given, be such as aid in the work of spiritualizing and elevating the child, and making his soul worthy of its heavenly abode. Hers is the duty to forbid to her children the use of books in which there is doctrine contrary to that which she teaches, in which is to be found any system or principle of mental philosophy that she has condemned, or in which history is compiled with a view to misrepresenting Catholicity or undermining Catholic influences. Children, or even young men and young women, are not in position to take in both sides of religious, philosophical or historical questions; they lack maturity of judgment and the information essential to determine truth from error. It were folly to leave their weak, half-trained, ill-informed minds to grapple alone with issues that exercise the most ripened scholars to comparatively little purpose. And so it happens that while the Church has no mission as regards the imparting of purely secular education, it belongs to her function to exercise due vigilance over every branch of science and letters that would be likely, directly or indirectly, to affect religious belief.
V.
We now come to the State. The State is also a social organism. It grows out of the very nature of society. The family, and not the individual, is the unit of the State. "The human family," says Cardinal Manning, "contains the first principles and laws of authority, obedience, and order. These three conditions of society are of Divine origin; and they are the constructive laws of all civil [31] or political society."[1] Therefore, the State is of Divine origin. It is organized for the protection of society and the common weal. It has rights and duties and responsibilities. Its rights are embodied in the natural law, and come not from society, nor from its own intrinsic nature, but from God who is the source and sanction of all authority, obedience and order. The State is organized directly for the happiness and well-being of man in this life. It protects his person and property; it guarantees him liberty of action in the fulfilment of his duties; it frames such laws as promote his welfare and the welfare of the nation. The form of government established in the State is determined by the people. There is no Divine ordinance as to what that form may be. Nor has the Church a preference. If our theologians speak of the king and the kingly form of government, it is because that is the form with which when writing they were most familiar. But the present Pope, Leo XIII., has clearly defined the position of the Church as regards form of government: "While being the guardian of her rights," he says, "and most careful against encroachment, the Church has no care what form of government exists in a State, or by what custom the civil order of Christian nations is directed; of the various kinds of government there is none of which she disapproves, so long as religion and moral discipline live untouched."[2] But while the form is determined by external circumstances, the authority and the sanction come from God. No man, for instance, has the power of life and death over another; and yet in the interests of society, the State condemns the criminal to be hanged. Whence derives it this dread power? Not from society, for the command Thou shall not kill is as applicable to a body of individuals as to a single person. Not in the State itself, for the State is only the society composing it, and society cannot give what it does not possess. The power and the sanction of that power come to the State from God alone. And since the State is of God as well as the Church, complete harmony should exist in all their relations. But the history of modern civilization is the history of unintermitting struggle between Church and State. Whence arises this struggle? The sphere of action of each is distinct. "Both Church and State have each an individual domain; wherefore in fulfilling their separate duties neither is subject to the other within the limits fixed by their boundary lines."[3] So speaks the reigning pontiff. To understand the struggle we must go back to the origin of Christianity. Christianity found itself face to face with Pagan Rome. Its Divine Founder counselled His disciples to [32] render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's and to God the things that were God's. And St. Paul threw the whole face of his energetic soul into insistance [sic] on obedience to the State. "Let every soul be subject to higher powers; for there is no power but from God; and those that are are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God and they that resist purchase to themselves damnation. . . . Render therefore to all men their dues. Tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor."[1] But there were clearly defined limitations beyond which the Christian could not submit. He could not worship the false gods of the pagan world. He could not share in the national rites and ceremonies that cloaked the most disgusting orgies and crimes. The Christian had learned the holy nature of the living God, the heinousness of sin and the necessity of keeping his soul spotless before the all-penetrating Presence. He had learned that many pagan practices, sanctioned by religion, were sinful, and he preferred death to sin. This gave rise to a bitter struggle between the State and the early Christian Church. There was no compromise. Under all circumstances God is to be obeyed rather than men. And so the Roman empire reeked with the blood of martyrs. It was a death-struggle. On the one side was the all-powerful, all-absorbing empire of the world, and on the other were a few scattered Christians, weak in numbers, weak in rank and position, weak in every respect but in the moral courage to live up to their convictions. But moral courage, animated by a burning idea, is an irresistible force. The vast material resources of the Roman Empire could not withstand its progress. Rome under Constantine proclaimed herself Christian. Her very law became regenerated.
St. Augustine had said—and his words bore with them great weight throughout the Middle Ages—that true justice has no existence save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ.[2] In the light of Christian truth and in the practice of Christian justice, always tempered by Christian mercy, the absolute law of pagan Rome came to be regarded as supreme injustice. Public opinion was gradually educated up to a higher conception of right and equity. Men became impressed with the sanctity of human life. From the beginning the Church had set her face against abortion and infanticide. In the course of time the State imbibed the same horror for these crimes and enacted laws against them. Gladiatorial games, in which lives were cast away to pander to a depraved taste, were abolished. A sense of universal brotherhood [33] grew apace. The dignity of labor became recognized. Charity extended a helping hand in many directions to the relief of want and the assuaging of misery and suffering. Immediately after the days of Constantine it is no longer the emperor who is remembered in men's last will and testament; it is the Church as the dispenser of charities. Here is already a great revolution of ideas. But the greatest of all revolutions in Roman jurisprudence is the recognition of the woman's rights in the marriage law as standing upon an equal footing with those of the man. This change renders the Justinian Code an immortal landmark in the history of human progress. The world has ceased to be Roman; the Galilean has conquered.
In like manner did the Church educate the barbarian up to the same sense of the sanctity of human life, the same respect for others' rights and others' goods, and the same idea of a universal brotherhood. In legislating for sin she was legislating for crime. The early Christian kings frequently made the Penitentials the basis of their criminal code. Her bishops and clergy in their councils enacted laws as beneficial to the State as they were helpful to souls. And so almost imperceptibly did modern jurisprudence receive a Christian tone till in its whole substance and meaning it has become solely and peculiarly Christian.[1] Well might Lecky write of the influence of the Church: "She exercised for many centuries an almost absolute empire over the thoughts and actions of mankind and created a civilization which was permeated in every part with ecclesiastical influence."[2] Let us not close our eyes to the nature of that influence. It was an influence achieved only after a long and patient struggle. The Church begins by teaching the barbarian his letters. By means of literature and ritual and ceremonial and plain chant she speaks to his imagination, and he understands and appreciates her language and his nature grows refined beneath the refining influence. By means of prayer and the grace of the sacraments she moulds [sic] his character and forms his soul to virtue. Her mission was one of civilization. It was the effort of mind to predominate over matter, the taming of lawless natures, the lifting up into a higher plane of thought, exertion and aspiration, a humanity that had otherwise been content to live within the most circumscribed sphere of earthly existence. An Ambrose stays the footsteps of Theodosius at the Church-door because his hands were stained with wanton bloodshed. This sublime act embodies the spirit and the mission of the Church towards the State. "The resistance," [34] says Bryce, "and final triumph of Athanasius proved that the new society could put forth a power of opinion such as had never been known before; the abasement of Theodosius the emperor before Ambrose the bishop admitted the supremacy of spiritual authority."[1] And so we find the Church at all times and under all circumstances, without respect of persons, regulating conduct and preserving purity of faith and morals.
VI.
In the midst of this civilizing process there loom up two powers, each the embodiment of a distinct idea, each claiming supremacy. In the struggle between these two powers we have the clue to all mediaeval and modern history. One is the Papacy; the other is the Holy Roman Empire. From the days of Constantine, according as the people became Christian, bishops exercised more and more influence in temporal affairs. They performed the functions of magistrates and judges, and so even-handed were they in administering the law the very pagans brought suit before them in preference to the civil courts. They were the counsellors [sic] and ministers of rulers. It was the bishops of France who made of France a nation. Her kings in consequence recognized their jurisdiction. Charles the Bald (A.D. 859) said that "by them he had been crowned, and to their paternal corrections and chastisements he was willing to submit."[2] What bishops were in their respective dioceses, the Pope came to be regarded by all Christendom. How else keep international relations upon a footing of equity? A weaker nation was helpless to right the wrongs inflicted by one more powerful. Countries far apart would find difficulty in coming to a mutual understanding. But, under the authority and through the mediation of the Supreme Head of Christendom, whom all looked upon as the father of the whole Christian family, the representative of justice and the avenger of evil-doing, wrongs might be righted and reconciliations effected under difficulties which might otherwise lead to disastrous results. And so the Pope became, by virtue of public law and by the consent of the Christian people—not by Divine right—the arbiter between sovereigns and the peacemaker among nations. His power as then recognized scarcely knew a limit. He could for sufficient reason depose kings, absolve people from allegiance to their rulers, place whole nations under interdict, quell wars, decide upon the justice of a cause, and more than once have we seen rulers place their kingdoms in fiefdom at his feet, as their only protection against a too-powerful enemy. Thus in 1214, we find Innocent III. forbidding [35] any bishop or cleric, without a special mandate from the Holy See, to censure King John of England, as he had become a vassal of the Pope.[1]
Side by side with the Papacy, stood the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor was the champion of the Church, pledged to her defence [sic] against all secular enemies. According to Frederick I., "Divine Providence had especially appointed the Roman Empire to prevent the continuance of schism in the Church."[2] The Empire was the creation of the Pope; it was not hereditary. The first Emperor was Charlemagne, crowned such at the Christmas of the year 800, by Leo III. It was Leo's own work, done for the peace and protection of the Church. The office was, like that of the Papacy itself, non-hereditary. "Each of these lofty offices," says Freeman, "is open to every baptized man; each alike is purely elective; each may be the reward of merit in any rank of life or in any corner of Christendom. While smaller offices were closely confined by local or aristocratic restrictions, the Throne of Augustus and the Chair of Peter were, in theory at least, open to the ambition of every man of orthodox belief. Even in the darkest times of aristocratic exclusiveness, no one dared to lay own as a principle that the Roman Emperor, any more than the Roman Bishop, need be of princely or Roman ancestry. Freedom of birth—Roman citizenship, in short, to clothe mediaeval ideas in classical words—was all that was needed."[3] And so the Holy Roman Empire, now a shadow, now a power, continued to exist by the grace of the Holy See, sometimes to aid, more frequently to hinder, the Church in the exercise of her functions and prerogatives. With the hereditary title came an hereditary tendency of reversion to the absolutism of the Caesars. Ecclesiastical privileges at first granted the emperors by the Popes, their successors in the Holy Roman Empire sought to convert into rights beyond the jurisdiction of the Papacy. The quarrel may read to us like a story of petty spites and personal squabbles; but its meaning is deeper. The very existence of the Church was involved. When bishoprics were put up for sale to the highest bidder, or were kept vacant for years that their revenues might flow into the royal or imperial coffers, it becomes evident that religion, and spiritual life, and morality must suffer, and the whole mission of the Church be frustrated. Upon more than one Pope must we accept the verdict of Neander concerning the indomitable Hildebrand: "Gregory VII. was animated by something higher than by self-seeking and selfish ambition; it was an idea which swayed him and to which he sacrificed [36] all other interests. It was the idea of the independence of the Church, and of a tribunal to exercise judgment over all other human relations; the idea of a religious and ethical sovereignty over the world to be exercised by the Papacy."[1] Those were stormy times, and it took a strong hand to curb the headlong career of the powerful when they would ride roughshod over the most sacred rights. When Philip Augustus, of France, violated the sanctity and indissolubility of the marriage-bond, it was the Popes who brought him to a sense of his duty, and compelled him to undo the great wrong he had done his injured wife, the beautiful and virtuous Ingeburge. Instances might be multiplied, in which the Popes shall be found struggling against might and prestige in the cause of the honor and dignity of womanhood. "Go through the long annals of Church history," says Cardinal Newman, "century after century, and say, was there ever a time when her bishops, and notably the Bishop of Rome, were slow to give their testimony in behalf of the moral and revealed law and to suffer for their obedience to it, or forgot that they had a message to deliver to the world? Not the task merely of administering spiritual consolation, or of making the sick-bed easy, or of training up good members of society, and of 'serving tables' (though all this was included in their range of duty); but specially and directly to deliver a message to the world, a definite message to high and low, from the world's Maker, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear. The history, surely, of the Church, in all past times, ancient as well as mediaeval, is the very embodiment of that tradition of Apostolical independence and freedom of speech, which in the eyes of man is her great offence now."[2]
Great is the debt the nations owe the Church for having preserved throughout the ages this independence of action and of speech. Despotism and tyranny would have had little respect for any or every element that enters into our modern civilization, if there were no authority to call a halt and say in tones that were unmistakeable [sic] and that commanded respect: "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther!" This was the temporal mission of the Papacy. How staunchly and how efficiently she fulfilled her mission has been recognized by all competent historians. Few there are who are not willing to subscribe to the verdict of Ancillon: "In the Middle Ages, when there was no social order, the Papacy, and perhaps the Papacy alone, saved Europe from a state of absolute barbarism. It created relations amongst nations far removed from each other, was a common centre [sic] for all, a point of union for States otherwise isolated. [37] It was a supreme court of justice raised in the midst of universal anarchy. Its judgments were from time to time received with the respect they merited. It fenced in and restrained the despotism of emperors. It compensated for the want of a due balance of power and lessened the injurious effects of feudal governments."[1] Let us add that the Papacy was more than a merely compensating principle. Based upon the supremacy of the spiritual over the material, recognized and acted upon by Christian nations possessing the same faith, it was a most secure, a most economic and a most impartial tribunal of arbitration. Has modern political science been able to furnish a better substitute?
When kings ceased to look to the Papacy for recognition and sanction, and no longer feared interdict or excommunication, they sought shelter in the Divine right of royalty to do all things. They refused to hold themselves amenable to any tribunal. "It is notorious," says the late Henry Summer Maine, "that as soon as the decay of the Feudal System had thrown the mediaeval constitutions out of working order, and when the Reformation had discredited the authority of the Pope, the doctrine of the Divine right of kings rose immediately into an importance which had never before attended it."[2] We all know how that doctrine brought a Charles I. to the block. Where else is despotism likely to lead? The kings of France complained of Papal interference; they found theologians to exaggerate the Papal pretensions; they sighed for the freedom of the Caliph. Well, they reduced that interference to a minimum; they endeavored to make every bishop a pope in his own diocese; they placed their tools in the diocesan seats. The theory of a national Church became popular; Gallicanism reigned; Rome received but scant respect, and what was the result? The people, exasperated against the oppressions of a century, rose in defence of rights and liberties which they were denied, and in the reeking horrors of the Revolution, became intoxicated with the blood of king and priest. Were there no Gallican Church identified with a long record of tyrannies and oppressions—had Rome been uniformly free to select its own bishops—its clergy would have been wholly identified with the people; their power and influence would have guided the storm, and instead of the guillotine and the orgies with which every student of history is familiar, a peaceful adjustment of the difficulties between king and people might have been made. This is all the more evident when we remember that the principle of the Revolution is the great underlying idea of modern times. All modern thought, all great political movements, all great social reforms are based upon the [38] sublime principle of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity rightly understood. Now, this principle has in it nothing to alarm. All the nations of the earth are marching towards its realization. In some, the awakening is earlier than in others. This was the underlying idea of the old Republic of Florence, "which would have no king because its king was Jesus Christ;"[1] it was the underlying idea that led to the Constitution of 1688, in England; it nerved the cantons of Switzerland to struggle against Austrian domination till they were free as the chamois ranging their beloved Alps; it gave birth to our own republic. Its spirit is in the air and will not down. Statesmen and governments may slight or ignore or even resist it; but such a course is one of folly. They who will not recognize it and give it direction and prepare men for its coming, will be borne down by its fierce impetus.
Again, since the treaty of Westphalia, Europe has been adjusted by what is known as balance of power. According to this principle, no one nation will be allowed to assume control beyond a certain limit. She may absorb a certain number of districts or provinces belonging to a weaker power, but, in order to preserve an equilibrium, she must not destroy that power. Or, a weaker power is a source of trouble to more powerful nations in her neighborhood. As a solution to the difficulty, why may they not—even as happened to Poland—carve the weaker nation up and distribute a share to each, still preserving, the equilibrium? These are events that could not have occurred under the arbitration of the Popes. A merely mechanical principle, with no other basis than expedience, no other motive than policy, such as is this principle of balance of power, must needs be immoral in its very nature and lead to acts of gross injustice. It is bearing its fruits to-day in Europe. Look at the attitude of all the great powers on the Continent! Each is in arms, grimly awaiting war. The strong and the young are idly consuming the products of the soil, and the nations are becoming impoverished. All human ingenuity and all triumphs of physical science are concentrated upon the discovery of the most rapid and most effectual methods of destroying human life. This state of affairs is radically wrong. Who would not rejoice to see every nation of Europe disarm, go back to the arts of peace, and leave the arbitration of all international difficulties to the Pope?
The Holy Roman Empire has passed into shadow-land. The doctrine of the absolute right of kings to perpetrate all acts in God's name, and under the Divine sanction, is no more. Even where crowned heads still exist in Europe, not they, but their peoples—Russia being excepted—rule. The world's future is altogether in the hands of the people. The relations of Church [39] and State in the new order of things may easily prove far more satisfactory than in the old order. In our own American Republic these relations are almost ideal. We know that purely ideal relations between Church and State obtain only where religion is one in society. Then might the secular power be subject to the spiritual power, as the body is subject to the soul; then might the State co-operate [sic] with the Church, aiding her when necessary in her work of establishing the kingdom of God in souls, knowing that all else, bearing upon temporal happiness, will surely follow. Here, where the forms of Christian belief are many, this order of things is impossible. But the order of things, guaranteed us by our Constitution and our laws, is admirable.
The noble patriots who framed our Constitution and laid so firmly the foundations of our republic, built upon the rights and liberties inherent in man. Now these rights and liberties with their accompanying duties and responsibilities, as between man and ma, are not of the State. They are above and beyond the State. They are the vital principle that gives being to the State. They are the natural law, which is a participation in the eternal law of God. The State is simply the mouth-piece to proclaim this law, and the instrument to enforce it. The principles of right and wrong existed before they were made to enter into statutory decrees, just as the Decalogue was engraved on the hearts of men before Moses inscribed it on tablets of stone. Those principles are eternal, and it is our pride and our glory and the secret of our prosperity as a people that the great charter of our liberties is based upon them. In consequence the State admits the right of every many to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience. Every man has his rights of conscience not as privileges conceded by the State, but as rights existing among his other natural rights, recognized and acknowledged by the State as held under a higher law than its own. Church and State do not here exist upon a system of mutual concessions or privileges. There is here no absorption of one into the other. They are distinct, but they are not separated. On the contrary, their union is most intimate and most harmonious. "There is nothing," says Brownson, "which Gregory VII., Innocent III., Boniface VIII. and other great popes struggled for against the German emperors, the kings of France, Aragon and England, and the Italian republics that is not recognized here by our republic to be the right of the spiritual order. Here the old antagonism between Church and State does not exist. There is here a certain antagonism, no doubt, between the Church and the sects, but none between the Church and the State or civil society. Here the Church has, so far as civil society is concerned, all that she has ever claimed, all that she has ever struggled for. Here [40] she is perfectly free. She summons her prelates to meet in council when she pleases, and promulgates her decrees for the spiritual government of her children without leave asked or obtained. The placet of the civil power is not needed, is neither solicited nor accepted. She erects and fills sees as she judges proper, founds and conducts schools, colleges, and seminaries in her own way, without let or hindrance; she manages her own temporalities, not by virtue of a grant or concession of the State, but as her acknowledged right, held as the right of conscience, independently of the State."[1]
Where society is split up into a diversity of creeds, there is supreme wisdom in the attitude of the State towards all, granting freedom of conscience so long as conscience dictates nothing contrary to the principles of natural right, or calculated to outrage the moral sense of society. We ask no closer relations of Church and State. So far as our religion is concerned, our sole cry is: "Hands off!" The State is incompetent to pronounce upon religious matters; it has no mission to determine the validity of a religious creed. To discriminate in favor of any one to the exclusion of all the others, were an act of injustice to every citizen not holding the favored creed. It were un-American because it were unconstitutional. It is a primary duty of the State to aid and protect its citizens in the fulfilment of their respective duties, to secure to them their inalienable rights, to see that justice is done between man and man; above all it is a duty of the State to safe-guard the weak minorities in their rights and immunities against the more powerful majorities.
In every man and woman there is an inseparable union of Church and State. Each holds certain religious tenets; many belong to some visible form of Christianity; but in proportion as all live up to their religious convictions, in that proportion are they good citizens, faithful in the performance of their civic duties—honest and honorable and just in all relations of life. Christian virtue in Christian society has never dimmed the civic virtues. Tell us, would the New England Puritans—the revered ancestors of many whom we now address—have left so lasting an impression upon this republic if they had been less intensely religious? The fierceness and asperity and intolerance that entered into their religious convictions and dictated the Colonial Blue Laws, also shaped the rigid honesty and integrity of character that would die rather than deviate a hair's breadth from the path of rectitude. When that noble son of Connecticut, Nathan Hale, was about to be hanged as a spy, his sole regret was that he had not other lives to give [41] for his country. Think you he was any the less sturdy a patriot because he had been strictly and religiously brought up in the stern tenets of his Puritan father? Can you imagine Charles Carroll of Carrollton, throwing his broad acres and his spotless name into the country's cause, any the less a patriot because he had been carefully trained by the Jesuits? Did he find any difficulty in reconciling his allegiance to Rome with his allegiance to the new-born republic? Was his cousin John Carroll, the first Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, less a patriot, when he accompanied the commission who sought the alliance of Canada in the cause of independence, than John Jay, when by his fanatical address to the people of Great Britain, he rendered that alliance an impossibility?[1] This is a subject over which men have needlessly waxed wroth. Let us raise ourselves above prejudices and look facts full in the face, and we will find, each in his own person, complete reconciliation between Church and State. Is not every full and perfect life an harmonious blending of these two orders of duties?" In this fact is the solution to the whole problem of Church and State. The name of God may not be in our Constitution, but His hand is discernible in every line of it. With far-seeing wisdom was that first amendment inserted: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Footnotes:
Page 20:
1. Brownson's Works, vol. xiii., p. 265.
2. Cardinal Mazzella, De Religione et Ecclesia, p. 449.
3. Naturrecht und Politik, p. 237, Bonn, 1871.
4. Schema concerning the Church prepared by the Fathers of the Vatican Council, apud Hergenröther, Church and State, vol. 1., p. 52.
Page 21:
1. Isid. Pelus., 1., iii, ep. 249.
2. Hom. 15, in 2 Cor., n. 5; Migne xi., 509.
3. De Legg, iv., p. 288.
4. Politics, viii., 8–12.
Page 22:
1. The First Age of the Church, vol. ii., pp. 216, 217.
2. Apol. I., pro Christ xii.
Page 23:
1. Summa Theologiae, II., ii., qu. xxxi., art. 7.
2. Actes eccles. et civiles de tous les Synodes nationaux de l'Eglise reformée de France, ii, 181, 182.
Page 25:
1. "But all theologians and laymen know that the Pope can do nothing against the Divine law; that he cannot dispense from the observance of the Fourth Commandment; that all Papal laws, even if they must be regarded as irreformable, still do not cease to be human."—Cardinal Hergenroether, Anti-Janus, p. 42.
Page 26:
1. The Westminster Review, June, 1888.
Page 29:
1. Is Life Worth Living? pp. 274, 275.
Page 31:
1. The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance, p. 46. Am. ed.
2. Encyclical, January 10, 1890. [Sapientiae Christianae, n. 28]
3. Ibid. [n. 30]
Page 32:
1. Romans xiii., 1–7.
2. De Civ. Dei., ii., 4.
Page 33:
1. See Bluntschli, Allgemeines Statsrecht, p. 6.
2. History of European Morals, ii. p., 15.
Page 34:
1. Holy Roman Empire, 3d ed., p. 120.
2. Hefele, iv., p. 197.
Page 35:
1. Migne, ccxvii., p. 226. Supplem. ep. 185.
2. Letter to the Prelates of Germany.
3. Historical Essays, vi., p. 136.
Page 36:
1. Church History, ii., p. 375. Third edition.
2. Letter to the Duke of Norfolk, p. 24.
Page 37:
1. Tableau des Revolutions du Système Politique de l'Europe, ti., introd. p. 133.
2. Ancient Law, p. 334.
Page 38:
1. Cardinal Capecelatro: Life of St. Philip Neri, vol. i., p. 34.
Page 40:
1. Works, vol. xiii., p. 142.
Page 41:
1. See a valuable article by John Gilmary Shea, in the U. S. Catholic Historical Magazine, vol. iii., No. x., "Why Canada is not a Part of the United States."
---
Source: Brother Azarias, "Church and State," The American Catholic Quarterly Review 16 (January–October 1891): 20–41.
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Repost: Censorship of the "Movies" (1919)
[557] To the Editor, The Ecclesiastical Review.
The article "Pastors and Censorship of the Movies" by the Rev. Edward F. Garesché, S.J., appearing in the March issue of the Review is in my opinion very timely and deserves the undivided attention of all pastors of souls. It is true beyond any controversy, that many moving pictures are indecent and [558] atrocious and have a bad effect upon the morals of our Catholic people. I happen to be intimately connected with moving pictures, as I show them at least once a week in the parish hall. I also witness the weekly pre-release showing of pictures for the purpose of selecting films which I deem fit to be shown in my church hall and I assure you that it is often very difficult to select even one picture a week, from the company I am dealing with, that may be called wholesome and excellent entertainment for the general public. However, those that I consider good enough to be shown are not always relished. Indeed I have often heard it said, even by people of my own congregation, that they prefer stories that show the human side of life, that have more "pep" to them. It goes to show how depraved even now is the mind of the "movie fan". They can tell you all the stars in the pictures, and their expression of their predilection for Pauline Frederick, or Theda Bara, or of so many others who star in pictures that never get beyond the "Pink Permit" class of the censor, shows conclusively the state of their mind.
Here in Chicago any one who wishes to study moving pictures can readily observe that those theatres [sic] which have the sign "For adults only" over the ticket office, are best patronized.
It is true that boards of censorship exist in some states and in some cities, but those boards are very often lax in the performance of their duties. We have for instance at the present time "Mickey," a "movie" play advertised for nearly two years. We find in it a place where Mabel Normand appears entirely nude. Then, toward the end of the same film, during the attack that is made upon her, we see flashed upon the background of the room a picture suggestive of the act the villain wishes to perform. Still the Chicago censor has passed this film.
No matter how good and excellent a picture may be as a whole, one passage that arouses the sensual nature of man as above described, one flash that leaves an indelible mark for evil upon the mind of the onlooker, is sufficient to rob the whole picture of the right to be called good and wholesome. It will do untold harm to the souls of Catholic people and especially to the souls of our children.
[559] It is a sacred duty of pastors of souls to call the attention of their flock to the pernicious effect which 75 per cent of the pictures produced during the last year exercise upon the minds of the "movie fans". I admit with Fr. Garesché that it is very difficult for the priest to learn the true condition of the moving pictures. They have neither the time nor the inclination to do so for more than one reason. However it is their sacred duty as pastors of souls to raise their voices in solemn warning of the very grave dangers to which those are exposed who habitually attend these places.
Another proof that it is the intention of the producers to appeal to the sensual nature of man may be found in the titles given to newly produced pictures.[1] For example, "For Husbands only," "Old Wives for New," "Wild Youth," "The Eternal Temptress," "The White Man's Law," "The Make-Believe Wife," "The Mortgaged Wife," "The Marriage Price," "Modern Love."
The sole aim of the producer in giving to pictures these names is to attract the public, to make them believe that they will see something that is interesting and that appeals to their sensual nature.
I happen to read this morning in one of our daily papers that certain film companies had a meeting in New York to protest against state censorship, and had engaged a Mr. Hess as their lawyer to fight the attempt of any censor to make cuts in pictures they had produced. This same Mr. Hess immediately wrote to the governors of some states, Oklahoma, Kansas, and some others, that if censorship was not abolished or if the movement now on foot to introduce censorship was not stopped, his clients, the picture producers, would refuse to ship films into these states, and warned them that any suits that might be started by "movie" houses on account of not receiving service, would be brought against them as representing their respective states.
The film producer is using his immense wealth and his great power to defeat censorship. He has been fighting censorship ever since it was organized. Especially the trade papers contain [560] articles, letters, etc., to bring to the attention of the managers of theatres their duty to stand behind the producer in their attempt to abolish censorship.
As a sample of the film producer's idea on film censorship I quote a few passages of an article on this matter just now appearing in the March issue of a trade paper.
Another and more potent reason why censorship is absolutely necessary is found in the influence for evil which the moving pictures exercise upon children. Bad and immoral pictures imprint an indelible mark upon the minds of children, pervert their reasoning power, and serve them as guides in their own actions. Only last week a very interesting article appeared in one of Chicago's daily papers, which explains this statement fully. It proves at the same time without a shadow of [561] doubt how pernicious most of the moving pictures are, if they produce the effects mentioned in the statement I am going to quote. This article appeared under the heading: "Movies replace church as guide to children," and reads as follows:
In my opinion an effective national board of censorship is the only means of successfully counteracting the evil of bad and immoral pictures, and of cutting out those passages that are apt to rouse the movie fan unto sin. It seems to me that no priest as an individual could make any successful effort to combat this great evil.
Only by the concerted action of persons in authority, only by the full and hearty coöperation [sic] of Archbishops and Bishops who would sign their names to a resolution empowering a committee of three or four to approach the right tribunal to demand safeguards for the morality of men, women, and children, can adequate censorship be obtained, a censorship that would be universal and vested with authority extending over all the pictures produced.
A national censorship of from six to twelve persons, representatives of all denominations and classes who have the moral welfare of the community at heart, and who would be clothed [563] with absolute power to reject any objectionable film, or objectionable features in a film, would in my mind be the happy solution of this vexed problem.
Priests, ministers, and professional men working together on this board to eliminate or at least to minimize the danger of corruption of morals of old and young, would be the ideal way. There would then be no necessity for a state or city censorship.
I admit with Father Garesché that the subject is an extremely disagreeable one. But I am also convinced that silence is no longer golden, and that something must be done soon to check the evil influences of the film industries. Surely someone could start the ball rolling.
I have made a suggestion. Someone else may probably make a better one, until we come to the modus agendi that would seem certain of success.
Chicagiensis.
Footnotes:
1. These titles are taken at random from pictures produced during the last three months.
---
Source: Chicagiensis, "Censorship of the 'Movies'," The Ecclesiastical Review 60 (May 1919): 557–563.
The article "Pastors and Censorship of the Movies" by the Rev. Edward F. Garesché, S.J., appearing in the March issue of the Review is in my opinion very timely and deserves the undivided attention of all pastors of souls. It is true beyond any controversy, that many moving pictures are indecent and [558] atrocious and have a bad effect upon the morals of our Catholic people. I happen to be intimately connected with moving pictures, as I show them at least once a week in the parish hall. I also witness the weekly pre-release showing of pictures for the purpose of selecting films which I deem fit to be shown in my church hall and I assure you that it is often very difficult to select even one picture a week, from the company I am dealing with, that may be called wholesome and excellent entertainment for the general public. However, those that I consider good enough to be shown are not always relished. Indeed I have often heard it said, even by people of my own congregation, that they prefer stories that show the human side of life, that have more "pep" to them. It goes to show how depraved even now is the mind of the "movie fan". They can tell you all the stars in the pictures, and their expression of their predilection for Pauline Frederick, or Theda Bara, or of so many others who star in pictures that never get beyond the "Pink Permit" class of the censor, shows conclusively the state of their mind.
Here in Chicago any one who wishes to study moving pictures can readily observe that those theatres [sic] which have the sign "For adults only" over the ticket office, are best patronized.
It is true that boards of censorship exist in some states and in some cities, but those boards are very often lax in the performance of their duties. We have for instance at the present time "Mickey," a "movie" play advertised for nearly two years. We find in it a place where Mabel Normand appears entirely nude. Then, toward the end of the same film, during the attack that is made upon her, we see flashed upon the background of the room a picture suggestive of the act the villain wishes to perform. Still the Chicago censor has passed this film.
No matter how good and excellent a picture may be as a whole, one passage that arouses the sensual nature of man as above described, one flash that leaves an indelible mark for evil upon the mind of the onlooker, is sufficient to rob the whole picture of the right to be called good and wholesome. It will do untold harm to the souls of Catholic people and especially to the souls of our children.
[559] It is a sacred duty of pastors of souls to call the attention of their flock to the pernicious effect which 75 per cent of the pictures produced during the last year exercise upon the minds of the "movie fans". I admit with Fr. Garesché that it is very difficult for the priest to learn the true condition of the moving pictures. They have neither the time nor the inclination to do so for more than one reason. However it is their sacred duty as pastors of souls to raise their voices in solemn warning of the very grave dangers to which those are exposed who habitually attend these places.
Another proof that it is the intention of the producers to appeal to the sensual nature of man may be found in the titles given to newly produced pictures.[1] For example, "For Husbands only," "Old Wives for New," "Wild Youth," "The Eternal Temptress," "The White Man's Law," "The Make-Believe Wife," "The Mortgaged Wife," "The Marriage Price," "Modern Love."
The sole aim of the producer in giving to pictures these names is to attract the public, to make them believe that they will see something that is interesting and that appeals to their sensual nature.
I happen to read this morning in one of our daily papers that certain film companies had a meeting in New York to protest against state censorship, and had engaged a Mr. Hess as their lawyer to fight the attempt of any censor to make cuts in pictures they had produced. This same Mr. Hess immediately wrote to the governors of some states, Oklahoma, Kansas, and some others, that if censorship was not abolished or if the movement now on foot to introduce censorship was not stopped, his clients, the picture producers, would refuse to ship films into these states, and warned them that any suits that might be started by "movie" houses on account of not receiving service, would be brought against them as representing their respective states.
The film producer is using his immense wealth and his great power to defeat censorship. He has been fighting censorship ever since it was organized. Especially the trade papers contain [560] articles, letters, etc., to bring to the attention of the managers of theatres their duty to stand behind the producer in their attempt to abolish censorship.
As a sample of the film producer's idea on film censorship I quote a few passages of an article on this matter just now appearing in the March issue of a trade paper.
An official censor, empowered to say what the people shall see on the screen and what they shall not see, is an obstacle in the way of moral and intellectual progress, as well as a czar whose existence is a denial of democracy. Official censorship is bad in theory and worse in practice.
The very idea upon which it is based denies the fundamental truth that real growth and development must be free, and experience gives abundant testimony to the fact that censorship is almost invariably characterized by stupidity, ignorance, and bigotry, and sometimes selfish interest.Another trade paper for February has the following to say, regarding a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Associated Motion Picture Exhibitors of Brooklyn and Long Island, who met to protest against a bill introduced by Assemblyman William F. Brush of Orange County, New York, designed to create a State Motion Picture Censorship.
A resolution was unanimously adopted against the enactment of this bill into law and a committee of five was appointed for the purpose of opposing the proposed legislation.
It was the consensus of opinion among the speakers present that this bill is the most iniquitous piece of legislation ever aimed at the motion picture industry since its inception.The unscrupulous means which the film industry employs and the enormous amount of money spent by them to accomplish their task of defeating censorship are proof sufficient that censorship is necessary.
Another and more potent reason why censorship is absolutely necessary is found in the influence for evil which the moving pictures exercise upon children. Bad and immoral pictures imprint an indelible mark upon the minds of children, pervert their reasoning power, and serve them as guides in their own actions. Only last week a very interesting article appeared in one of Chicago's daily papers, which explains this statement fully. It proves at the same time without a shadow of [561] doubt how pernicious most of the moving pictures are, if they produce the effects mentioned in the statement I am going to quote. This article appeared under the heading: "Movies replace church as guide to children," and reads as follows:
The church has taken a back seat for the movies. Instead of it being the secondary influence on the welfare of children it has been relegated to the fourth class. The three important influences to-day are the home, the school, and the movies.
This is the opinion of Professor Ernest W. Burgess, teacher of sociology at the University of Chicago, who yesterday reported to the Council Censorship Commission the results of observation made by 237 teachers of the fourth, sixth, eighth, and high-school grades of the effect movies have on children.
He said of the 100,000 children tested, over 50 per cent were vitally affected by the motion picture.
"Parents of to-day are confronted with a different child-welfare problem from that faced by our forefathers," said Professor Burgess.
"The average child is more influenced by the movie than by the church and it is the parents' duty to see that children are kept from seeing harmful pictures."
Twenty-three teachers reported that movies create irresponsible and selfish views among children. Other teachers found these effects:
[562]Belief that life is for excitement . . . . . . 14On the question of whether the movies cause a lack of respect for authority:
False and distorted views . . . . . . 82
Unfits child for future duties . . . . . . 38
Adult and blasé views . . . . . . 13
Non-acquired views . . . . . . 11
Broadened views . . . . . . 10
Assists judgment . . . . . . 8
Belief in luck . . . . . . 8
Dissatisfaction . . . . . . 5
Prepares for future duties . . . . . . 2
Other bad effects . . . . . . 5
No reports . . . . . . 51Yes . . . . . . 84Do the movies make the child precocious about sex life?
No . . . . . . 62
Yes, with reservation . . . . . . 55
Non-committal . . . . . . 14
No reports . . . . . . 18Yes . . . . . . 112
No . . . . . . 27
Yes, with reservation . . . . . . 39
Non-committal . . . . . . 35
No reports . . . . . . 20
Dr. Fred Z. Zapffee, reputed neurologist, advised that children be permitted to go to movies only once a week and that the show be not longer than one hour and a half. He said modern pictures cause children to become irritable, nervous, excitable, and that of the 500,000 who visit the movies weekly over 40 per cent visit the theatres at least three times a week.
Chairman Timothy D. Hurley and the other members of the commission expressed surprise at the revelation. The commission is conducting an investigation into the censorship situation.How can censorship be made strong, effective, and at the same time universal? One used to see an official stamp at the end of all pictures, saying, "Approved by the National Board of Censorship". If this organization could be composed of men who were imbued with a true sense of their great responsibility, with the knowledge of the seriousness of this all-important position, and with moral courage to exercise the power entrusted to them, then and only then could it bring results that are demanded for the sound morality of the general public. In the past this national censorship has apparently had neither the courage nor the vision to realize their great responsibility to eliminate passages, pictures, and subtitles that are destructive of the morality of men. "By their works you shall know them."
In my opinion an effective national board of censorship is the only means of successfully counteracting the evil of bad and immoral pictures, and of cutting out those passages that are apt to rouse the movie fan unto sin. It seems to me that no priest as an individual could make any successful effort to combat this great evil.
Only by the concerted action of persons in authority, only by the full and hearty coöperation [sic] of Archbishops and Bishops who would sign their names to a resolution empowering a committee of three or four to approach the right tribunal to demand safeguards for the morality of men, women, and children, can adequate censorship be obtained, a censorship that would be universal and vested with authority extending over all the pictures produced.
A national censorship of from six to twelve persons, representatives of all denominations and classes who have the moral welfare of the community at heart, and who would be clothed [563] with absolute power to reject any objectionable film, or objectionable features in a film, would in my mind be the happy solution of this vexed problem.
Priests, ministers, and professional men working together on this board to eliminate or at least to minimize the danger of corruption of morals of old and young, would be the ideal way. There would then be no necessity for a state or city censorship.
I admit with Father Garesché that the subject is an extremely disagreeable one. But I am also convinced that silence is no longer golden, and that something must be done soon to check the evil influences of the film industries. Surely someone could start the ball rolling.
I have made a suggestion. Someone else may probably make a better one, until we come to the modus agendi that would seem certain of success.
Chicagiensis.
Footnotes:
1. These titles are taken at random from pictures produced during the last three months.
---
Source: Chicagiensis, "Censorship of the 'Movies'," The Ecclesiastical Review 60 (May 1919): 557–563.
Repost: Pastors and the Censorship of the "Movies" (1919)
[256] Not long ago, in one of our large cities, the Secretary of one of the Boards of Censors of Moving Pictures gave an address on the atrocious evils of this business and the great need of censorship to keep the movies from corrupting the public, and especially ruining the imaginations and the minds of children. There were present a number of the clergy, and when the lecturer illustrated his remarks by sections taken from some of the condemned films, one of the witnesses avers that divers of the clergy were heard to groan audibly in their [257] horror at the realization of the lengths to which unscrupulous manufacturers of moving pictures were going in presenting the vulgar and the impure. Those groans, one thinks, are very significant. They show how little some of our zealous pastors realize the wholesale corruption which is going on in their very parishes, and they witness too that the appreciation of the evil would move our zealous pastors to try more energetically to remedy it.
So very atrocious and indecent are some of the moving pictures of to-day that one can scarcely write frankly of them for general publication. Even to describe vaguely the excesses of the screen would make unfit reading for the general public. Indeed it is a subject on which one had rather be silent altogether. But fancy what the reality must be if the account itself is so distressing. And these vile pictures are being offered for the daily delectation of that public, including our own people and the innocent children, day after day on 17,000 screens.
The subject is a particularly urgent one just at this present time, and requires all the vigilance and zeal of the clergy to prevent permanent injury to the souls intrusted [sic] to our care. The only secure remedy for the abuses of the moving pictures is censorship. A movement is on foot to establish this censorship. It is important that pastors' intimately concerned to know the gravity of the situation, be prepared, when the time comes in their locality, either themselves to initiate agitation for censorship, or to support such a movement when it is set afoot by others.
Effective boards of censorship exist at the present time in Pennsylvania, Ohio, the city of Chicago, and perhaps in a few other places. Altogether, about eleven per cent of the population of the United States is protected in this way. All the rest of the country depends for its protection either upon the activities of local organizations or on the sometimes precarious diligence of the police.
Where competent boards of censors exist, their activities seem both successful and satisfactory. So far as they go, they are really an answer to the problem of repressing the more obviously objectionable excesses of the movies. Their standards are sensible and competent, and their decisions given with [258] a great deal of moral courage when one considers the potent interests arrayed against them. The better element among the manufacturers of moving pictures are themselves in favor of the control of moving pictures, since they realize that the production and exhibition of bad films react unfavorably on their legitimate profits, and they are only anxious that the movement for censorship may take a turn that will give them as little trouble as possible, while at the same time it suppresses the unscrupulous. So that if public opinion can be generally aroused to the need, there seems to be no good reason why censorship may not be made so universal and so effective that the public may be protected from the more glaring abuses of the movies. As for the constructive side, the building-up of a movement for the use of the movies in all their varied possibilities of instruction, inspiration, and the propaganda of sound principles and sentiments, this is a problem by itself and one even more important than the subject of this present paper.
Censorship has then been sufficiently tried for one to be able to assert that it is a success and offers a solution of the negative part of the problem of the movies, the suppression of the worst films. As to the need of censorship, the reports and experiences of the censors themselves afford a wealth of authentic evidence. To begin with, let us quote briefly from the remarks of the Secretary of the Board of Censors of Pennsylvania, as given in a recent issue of The Queen's Work. This official, whose experience with the drama was very extensive before he was appointed to the Board of Censors of the State of Pennsylvania, declares that he was amazed when he began to censor the moving pictures. The flood of crude vulgarity depicted on the screen astonished even more than it disgusted him. He was appalled to see that the influence of the movies is actually toward the destruction of popular taste, the killing of the legitimate stage, and the implanting in the minds of the people a craving for sensationalism, cheapness, and degradation. He sums up in this way the result of three years' careful observation:
Seventy-five per cent of all the films which are now being made and shown have to deal with some topic connected with crime, violence, or villainy of one sort or another. Twenty [259] per cent of the films are what is called slapstick comedy, rough and vulgar burlesque, without any elevating note, and sometimes with very little reasonable entertainment. And five per cent of all the films that have come under observation are educational. Of course, not all the seventy-five per cent which deal with crime and violence are objectionable, because such themes, though sensational in themselves, may be turned to instructive or at least entertaining ends. But a great part of them are absolutely degrading in their influence on the spectators, especially on the immature and children.
To begin with, let us look over the standards which the Pennsylvania Board of Censors have formulated after their experience of four years, after examining perhaps seventy or eighty million feet of film which has come before their censors during the four years ending with April 1918. In 1918 the Board issued the following set of rules, entitled "Standards of the Board." They indicate the principles on which eliminations are made in films that are given permission to be shown in the State, or the standards according to which entire films will be refused such permission. The point to be made in this connexion [sic] is that these standards formulate pretty completely the chief objectionable features actually observed by the censors during their inspection of the current run of films, since if the abuses noted were not common they would not have come up for inclusion in the prohibitions issued by the Board.
Standards of the Board.
[263] It is very difficult for the priest to learn the true condition of the moving pictures. They have neither the time nor the inclination to go to the moving-picture theatres, and besides it would be imprudent to do so for more than one reason. On the other hand, the general remarks about the dangers and abuses of moving pictures that one hears are not convincing enough to stir one to action. But in the reports of the authorized censors one finds convincing details. The reliability of these reports may be judged from two considerations. One is that their findings, as given below, have been complied with by the manufacturers of the films and the exhibitors, who would have legal recourse if they were not accurate, and who have eliminated the objectionable features or have acquiesced with the order forbidden the exhibition of whole films anywhere in the State of Pennsylvania. The second is that this board maintains itself and enforces its findings in spite of the natural resistance and opposition that it meets from interested persons and corporations. Here then is material that is authentic and definite.[1]
Now for some of the detailed cut-outs ordered by the Board. I clip them at haphazard from the weekly sheets. The board takes cognizance of posters and sheets as well as of films. Here is a case in point:
"The Kaiser's Finish." A. Warner.
Sheet:—Condemned.
Here are some of the eliminations ordered in this film—among many others.
I merely cite the following as specimens of the reports of last year:
Inspiration. Mutual.
The Struggle Everlasting. State No. 32765.
High Arts prod.—6 reels.
It is to be remembered that all this disgusting vileness occurs as interludes in films, the remainder of which was allowed to be exhibited.
This is the sort of thing that is being shown without hindrance, save from local and occasional protests, throughout nearly nine-tenths of the land. It is exceedingly distasteful to read such degrading vileness. But the pastors of souls, reflecting that their own people and particularly the children of their congregations, are exposed to see such episodes vividly presented to their impressionable eyes and imaginations in the intense and absorbing interest of the moving-picture theatres almost any night that they go to the movies, will wish and work for the day when a sensible and universal censorship may keep at least these flagrant abuses from being inflicted on the general public.
All the indecencies and vilenesses [sic] here described were at least eliminated from the 1500 moving-picture houses of Pennsylvania by the effective vigilance of the Board of Censors there. The same result may be brought about in other places through similar laws similarly enforced. True, the subject is an extremely disagreeable one and it would be much pleasanter to remain silent concerning things so repulsive and disgraceful. But this evil closely concerns the souls of the people and especially of children. It is necessary for our pastors to be informed, and such an object-lesson as the above, disagreeable [266] though it e both to give and to take, is the most direct and efficacious means of bringing home to us all the acuteness of the situation. Once informed, one cannot doubt that the priests of the entire country will prepare to take effective action.
Edward F. Garesché, S.J.
St. Louis, Missouri.
Footnotes:
1. The editor should be moved to apologize for presenting any of these details in a respectable magazine, if it were not for the fact that they indicate what sort of scenes, with all their horrid vulgarities, are attracting young people everywhere—and children whose parents exercise no supervision.
---
Source: Edward F. Garesché, SJ, "Pastors and the Censorship of the 'Movies'," The Ecclesiastical Review 60 (March 1919): 256–266.
So very atrocious and indecent are some of the moving pictures of to-day that one can scarcely write frankly of them for general publication. Even to describe vaguely the excesses of the screen would make unfit reading for the general public. Indeed it is a subject on which one had rather be silent altogether. But fancy what the reality must be if the account itself is so distressing. And these vile pictures are being offered for the daily delectation of that public, including our own people and the innocent children, day after day on 17,000 screens.
The subject is a particularly urgent one just at this present time, and requires all the vigilance and zeal of the clergy to prevent permanent injury to the souls intrusted [sic] to our care. The only secure remedy for the abuses of the moving pictures is censorship. A movement is on foot to establish this censorship. It is important that pastors' intimately concerned to know the gravity of the situation, be prepared, when the time comes in their locality, either themselves to initiate agitation for censorship, or to support such a movement when it is set afoot by others.
Effective boards of censorship exist at the present time in Pennsylvania, Ohio, the city of Chicago, and perhaps in a few other places. Altogether, about eleven per cent of the population of the United States is protected in this way. All the rest of the country depends for its protection either upon the activities of local organizations or on the sometimes precarious diligence of the police.
Where competent boards of censors exist, their activities seem both successful and satisfactory. So far as they go, they are really an answer to the problem of repressing the more obviously objectionable excesses of the movies. Their standards are sensible and competent, and their decisions given with [258] a great deal of moral courage when one considers the potent interests arrayed against them. The better element among the manufacturers of moving pictures are themselves in favor of the control of moving pictures, since they realize that the production and exhibition of bad films react unfavorably on their legitimate profits, and they are only anxious that the movement for censorship may take a turn that will give them as little trouble as possible, while at the same time it suppresses the unscrupulous. So that if public opinion can be generally aroused to the need, there seems to be no good reason why censorship may not be made so universal and so effective that the public may be protected from the more glaring abuses of the movies. As for the constructive side, the building-up of a movement for the use of the movies in all their varied possibilities of instruction, inspiration, and the propaganda of sound principles and sentiments, this is a problem by itself and one even more important than the subject of this present paper.
Censorship has then been sufficiently tried for one to be able to assert that it is a success and offers a solution of the negative part of the problem of the movies, the suppression of the worst films. As to the need of censorship, the reports and experiences of the censors themselves afford a wealth of authentic evidence. To begin with, let us quote briefly from the remarks of the Secretary of the Board of Censors of Pennsylvania, as given in a recent issue of The Queen's Work. This official, whose experience with the drama was very extensive before he was appointed to the Board of Censors of the State of Pennsylvania, declares that he was amazed when he began to censor the moving pictures. The flood of crude vulgarity depicted on the screen astonished even more than it disgusted him. He was appalled to see that the influence of the movies is actually toward the destruction of popular taste, the killing of the legitimate stage, and the implanting in the minds of the people a craving for sensationalism, cheapness, and degradation. He sums up in this way the result of three years' careful observation:
Seventy-five per cent of all the films which are now being made and shown have to deal with some topic connected with crime, violence, or villainy of one sort or another. Twenty [259] per cent of the films are what is called slapstick comedy, rough and vulgar burlesque, without any elevating note, and sometimes with very little reasonable entertainment. And five per cent of all the films that have come under observation are educational. Of course, not all the seventy-five per cent which deal with crime and violence are objectionable, because such themes, though sensational in themselves, may be turned to instructive or at least entertaining ends. But a great part of them are absolutely degrading in their influence on the spectators, especially on the immature and children.
The worst of the crime pictures [says the Doctor] is the serial. It is merely the old-time dime novel translated into pictures. It goes on from incident to episode for weeks and months, each installment trying to outdo the last in excitement and sensationalism, and every boy in the neighborhood howls with delight when he sees the announcement that the next episode will be exhibited in the local theatre [sic].
All the objections which were urged against the dime novel, intensified by the vividness of the screen, hold against the serial picture. The ordinary five-reel feature, on the other hand, is the old-time slushy, sentimental novel reduced to pictures, and it does its own harm, giving unreal views of life, fostering cheap sentiment and false ideals, and open to pretty much the same objections that were urged of old against the mushy novel which is its prototype.
But perhaps most deplorable of all is the moral teaching of the movies. Those who have observed the output of the films during the last few years can scarcely find words strong enough to condemn the atrocious license taken by irresponsible directors of moving pictures to portray the most harmful and unspeakable themes. A glance at the weekly report of the Pennsylvania Board, for example, will suffice to convince anyone of the dreadful need for supervision in this regard. This deplorable evil cries for a remedy and it is on the consciences of our pastors, mothers and fathers and of all decent people to see to it that the situation is radically remedied.All these details, however, will prove less convincing, in setting before our pastors the true state of the moving picture business, than some literal quotations from the documents of the boards of censors themselves. One must overcome a disgusted reluctance to speak of the vile details of indecency, vulgarity, and crime which enter into this business. But nothing else will give so convincing an object-lesson of the real condition of an amusement which is filling every night of the [260] year 17,000 moving-picture theatres in the United States, entertaining every day some twelve million people, and has got itself into the position of the greatest beyond measure of all organized forms of entertainment, the fifth largest of all commercial enterprises in the country, and in which is invested some five to six hundred million dollars. Quite a lot of material has come our way bearing on this unsavory subject, and we feel it a sort of duty to make it known in this way to priests in general.
To begin with, let us look over the standards which the Pennsylvania Board of Censors have formulated after their experience of four years, after examining perhaps seventy or eighty million feet of film which has come before their censors during the four years ending with April 1918. In 1918 the Board issued the following set of rules, entitled "Standards of the Board." They indicate the principles on which eliminations are made in films that are given permission to be shown in the State, or the standards according to which entire films will be refused such permission. The point to be made in this connexion [sic] is that these standards formulate pretty completely the chief objectionable features actually observed by the censors during their inspection of the current run of films, since if the abuses noted were not common they would not have come up for inclusion in the prohibitions issued by the Board.
Standards of the Board.
1. The Board will condemn pictures, and parts of pictures, dealing with "white slavery". The procuration and prostitution in all forms, of girls, and their confinement for immoral purposes may not be shown upon the screen, and will be disapproved. Views of prostitutes and houses of ill-fame will be disapproved.
2. Pictures, and parts of pictures, which deal with the seduction of women, particularly the betrayal of young girls, and assaults upon women, with immoral intent, will be disapproved.
3. Pre-natal and childbed scenes, and subtitles describing them, will be disapproved.
4. Pictures, and parts of pictures, dealing with the drug habit; e. g., the use of opium, morphine, cocaine, etc., will be disapproved. The traffic in habit-forming drugs is forbidden and visualized scenes of their use will be disapproved.
[261] 5. Scenes showing the modus operandi of criminals which are suggestive and incite to evil action, such as murder, poisoning, house-breaking, safe-robbery, pocket-picking, the lighting and throwing of bombs, the use of ether, chloroform, etc., to render men and women unconscious, binding and gagging, will be disapproved.
6. Gruesome and unduly distressing scenes will be disapproved. These include shooting, stabbing, profuse bleeding, prolonged views of men dying and of corpses, lashing and whipping, and other torture scenes, hangings, lynchings, electrocutions, surgical operations, and views of persons in delirium or insane.
7. Studio and other scenes, in which the human form is shown in the nude, or the body is unduly exposed, will be disapproved.
8. Pictures, and parts of pictures, dealing with abortion and malpractice, will be disapproved. These will include themes and incidents having to do with eugenics, "birth control", "race suicide" and similar subjects.
9. Stories, or scenes holding up to ridicule and reproach races, classes, or other social groups, as well as the irreverent and sacrilegious treatment of religious bodies or other things held to be sacred, will be disapproved. The materialization of the figure of Christ may be disapproved.
10. Pictures which deal with counterfeiting will be disapproved.
11. Scenes showing men and women living together without marriage, and in adultery, will be disapproved. Discussion of the question of the consummation of marriage, in pictures, will be disapproved.
12. The brutal treatment of children and of animals may lead to the disapproval of the theme, or of incidents in film stories.
13. The use of profane and objectionable language in subtitles will be disapproved.
14. Objectionable titles, as well as subtitles of pictures, will be disapproved.
15. Views of incendiarism [sic], burning, wrecking and the destruction of property, which may put like action into the minds of those of evil instincts, or may degrade the morals of the young, will be disapproved.
16. Gross and offensive drunkenness, especially if women have a part in the scenes, will be disapproved.
17. Pictures which deal at length with gun play, and the use of knives, and are set in the underworld, will be disapproved. When the whole theme is crime, unrelieved by other scenes, the film will be disapproved. Prolonged fighting scenes will be shortened, and brutal fights will be wholly disapproved.
[262] 18. Vulgarities of a gross kind, such as often appear in slapstick and other screen comedies, will be disapproved. Comedy which burlesques morgues, funerals, hospitals, insane asylums, the lying-in of women and houses of ill-fame, will be disapproved.
19. Sensual kissing and love-making scenes, men and women in bed together and indelicate sexual situations, whether in comedies or pictures of other classes, will be disapproved. Bathing scenes which pass the limits of propriety, lewd and immodest dancing, the needless exhibition of women in their night dresses or underclothing, will be disapproved.
20. Views of women smoking will not be disapproved as such, but when women are shown in suggestive positions or their manner of smoking is suggestive or degrading, such scenes will be disapproved.
21. Pictures or parts of pictures which deal with venereal disease, of any kind, will be disapproved.
22. That the theme or story of a picture is adapted from a publication, whether classical or not; or that portions of a picture follow paintings or other illustrations, is not a sufficient reason for the approval of a picture or portions of a picture.
23. Themes or incidents in picture stories, which are designed to inflame the mind to improper adventures, or to establish false standards of conduct, coming under the foregoing classes, or of other kinds, will be disapproved. Pictures will be judged as a whole, with a view to their final total effect; those portraying evil in any form which may be easily remembered or emulated, will be disapproved.
24. Banners, posters or other advertising matter, concerning motion pictures, must follow the rules laid down for the pictures themselves. That which may not be used upon the screen, must not be used to announce and direct public attention to the picture, in the lobby, on the street, or in any other form.These standards present a résumé of the more common and flagrant indecencies and vulgarities of the screen. But it is from the weekly reports of the Board that one obtains the details of the sort of vileness, violence, and crime that is being poured into the imaginations of children and the impressionable at their nightly visits to the movies. Let me take some instances at random from recent reports. The Board of Censors issues every week a report giving the titles of films condemned entirely during the week and of the parts ordered cut out of films that were allowed to be shown after these eliminations had been made. A number of these recent reports lie before me, and from them I shall give some typical instances.
[263] It is very difficult for the priest to learn the true condition of the moving pictures. They have neither the time nor the inclination to go to the moving-picture theatres, and besides it would be imprudent to do so for more than one reason. On the other hand, the general remarks about the dangers and abuses of moving pictures that one hears are not convincing enough to stir one to action. But in the reports of the authorized censors one finds convincing details. The reliability of these reports may be judged from two considerations. One is that their findings, as given below, have been complied with by the manufacturers of the films and the exhibitors, who would have legal recourse if they were not accurate, and who have eliminated the objectionable features or have acquiesced with the order forbidden the exhibition of whole films anywhere in the State of Pennsylvania. The second is that this board maintains itself and enforces its findings in spite of the natural resistance and opposition that it meets from interested persons and corporations. Here then is material that is authentic and definite.[1]
Now for some of the detailed cut-outs ordered by the Board. I clip them at haphazard from the weekly sheets. The board takes cognizance of posters and sheets as well as of films. Here is a case in point:
"The Kaiser's Finish." A. Warner.
Sheet:—Condemned.
2—six sheet of the Crown Prince and other German officers and partly nude women in very vulgar attitudes of seduction. One of these women is lying upside down across a man's lap with her foot and bare limb extended high in air, while man drinks from her slipper. Caption underneath reads, "Underground Kultur—Professional Women from Berlin entertain German officers, whilst men die in the Trenches".[264]
1—8x10 reproduction of condemned six sheets.
1—28x22 colored photographic reproduction of condemned six sheet.
Here are some of the eliminations ordered in this film—among many others.
R 6 A Elim. subtitle, "I train the women to amuse my officers by mixing them with the professionals. While the revelry is progressing I do my work. It is inspiring."
B Elim. subtitle reading in part, "For the women of Belgium we have a special purpose."
C Elim. subtitle reading in part, "We don't kill Belgium women. We keep them to entertain the officers", etc.
R 7 A Elim. subtitle, "The first step to barbarity and degeneracy. The Dungeon of Lust", etc.Yet this film is marked (Reconstructed), which means that it was worse before, but has now been made over.
B Elim. all lewd and lustful scenes in dugout, including vulgar dancing and contortion and sensual kissing.
N Elim. all views and subtitles connected with the visit of the monarch to the home of the peasant woman, his assaulting her, arranging his dress, the incident of her father striking him and being killed. The idea is to remove all incidents connected with physician's story explaining Richard's birth.
I merely cite the following as specimens of the reports of last year:
Inspiration. Mutual.
A. Throughout each and every eel eliminate each scene where models pose in the nude. This includes views of the models in the nude, whether posing or not, either full figure or only a portion of person exposed.The Donkey Did It. L-Ko. State No. 31810.
B. Elim. all subtitles relating to models posing in the nude.
C. The view of model posing for the caste is allowed, etc.
R I A. Elim. view of woman pulling trousers off a preacher, while he is caught in the fork of tree.[265]
B. Elim. view of woman holding up preacher's trousers.
C. Elim. all views of preacher running about without trousers.
D. Elim. . . . .
E. Elim. views of girls dancing around preacher in undergarments.
F. Elim. subtitle, "Where is your pants?"
The Struggle Everlasting. State No. 32765.
High Arts prod.—6 reels.
Condemned in accordance with Section 6 of act and nos. 1, 6, and 19 of the Rules and Standards. This picture deals with immorality, in that it portrays, etc.Lost and Found. A-Kay Co.—1 reel. State No. 32811.
Condemned in accordance with section 6 of the Act. This story is irreverent, sacrilegious, and holds up to ridicule things that are sacred.The Girl of To-day. Vitagraph.
R. I. A. Elim. memory of vision of girl after being ravished.The list of censored films that is given in detail presents the most vulgar, indecent and sacrilegious collection of pictures that can be imagined.
It is to be remembered that all this disgusting vileness occurs as interludes in films, the remainder of which was allowed to be exhibited.
This is the sort of thing that is being shown without hindrance, save from local and occasional protests, throughout nearly nine-tenths of the land. It is exceedingly distasteful to read such degrading vileness. But the pastors of souls, reflecting that their own people and particularly the children of their congregations, are exposed to see such episodes vividly presented to their impressionable eyes and imaginations in the intense and absorbing interest of the moving-picture theatres almost any night that they go to the movies, will wish and work for the day when a sensible and universal censorship may keep at least these flagrant abuses from being inflicted on the general public.
All the indecencies and vilenesses [sic] here described were at least eliminated from the 1500 moving-picture houses of Pennsylvania by the effective vigilance of the Board of Censors there. The same result may be brought about in other places through similar laws similarly enforced. True, the subject is an extremely disagreeable one and it would be much pleasanter to remain silent concerning things so repulsive and disgraceful. But this evil closely concerns the souls of the people and especially of children. It is necessary for our pastors to be informed, and such an object-lesson as the above, disagreeable [266] though it e both to give and to take, is the most direct and efficacious means of bringing home to us all the acuteness of the situation. Once informed, one cannot doubt that the priests of the entire country will prepare to take effective action.
Edward F. Garesché, S.J.
St. Louis, Missouri.
Footnotes:
1. The editor should be moved to apologize for presenting any of these details in a respectable magazine, if it were not for the fact that they indicate what sort of scenes, with all their horrid vulgarities, are attracting young people everywhere—and children whose parents exercise no supervision.
---
Source: Edward F. Garesché, SJ, "Pastors and the Censorship of the 'Movies'," The Ecclesiastical Review 60 (March 1919): 256–266.
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Jenn Morson and the Rejection of Purity Culture
The following is a reflection on Jenn Morson's article "The Dress that Ended My Modesty Obsession": https://www.racked.com/2017/3/28/14982578/modest-dressing-clothes-purity-culture
Experiences like the one described in the above article always strike a nerve for me. Not only is the behavior of the roommates described appalling in multiple ways, but the outcome and lasting effects it had on Morson only make the whole thing more tragic. I have seen something analogous with another person at my own college who began his freshman year as a self-identified traditional Catholic and because of excruciatingly negative experiences with other traditional Catholics ended up drinking the liberal Kool-Aid by the time he was a senior.
Yet why is the outcome of the author's experience tragic? A reader might get to the end of the essay cheering for the author and her newfound sense of freedom, of liberation from the poisonous aspects of purity culture. Indeed, the article is written in such a way as to evoke that sympathetic response from the reader. But the author doesn't just reject the poisonous aspects of purity culture. She rejects the entire culture itself: "My faith remained the same, although purity culture was no longer a part of it."
If by purity culture, we mean this sort of Orwellian, omnipresent surveillance and intrusion via secret purity police, who always style themselves as "friends," into literally the nooks and crannies of other people's lives, then of course, we should reject this culture, which isn't culture in any true sense of the word but a prison. On the other hand, the notion that "[n]ot having to worry whether or not my bare shoulders were causing others to sin was freeing, and if anyone, man or woman, thought it was their place to call me out, I’d inform them to avert their eyes if they couldn’t handle it"—this is simply not Catholic but classic liberalism and the attendant exaggerated individualism that we see today in feminism and most forms of libertarianism.
Morson summarizes purity culture:
Morson continues: "A commitment to purity culture must be expressed in dress: You show the world how unblemished you are by dressing modestly." Yet this is precisely backwards. Modesty isn't virtue signaling, or at least it ought not to be. One dresses modestly because one wishes to remain unblemished, pure, chaste, virtuous, not because one wishes to peacock to others that one is chaste. Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter demonstrates this discrepancy eloquently. The world has nothing to do with it at least not in its fundamental motivation and principal purpose. The commitment to purity and its expression in dress is the result of consistency between believing that sexuality is a powerful and profound good, that man is fallen and prone to weakness and temptation, that we as social beings must build each other up and not be stumbling blocks, and the most effective means to preserve these beliefs and principles. Modesty, like all forms of temperance, is an external expression of an interior disposition, yet before it is a powerful statement to a rapidly degenerating civilization, it firstly ought to be the result of a powerful commitment to a virtuous life.
The moral theology of scandal (CCC 2284–2287) and the ways in which we can participate in another's sin (CCC 1868) clearly form some of the basic principles, the guide posts, by which any truly healthy civilization may emerge. Is the attitude expressed by Morson in the above quotation one that shows concern for the spiritual well-being of her fellow man, or is it more like the snide retort of Cain, who when asked by God where the slain Abel was, said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen. 4:9). There are extremes here to be avoided. What is tragic is that this woman was pressed into another extreme because of the opposite extreme that vilified her.
Morson's error is further illustrated by the following rhetorical question: "I knew that I was the same person whether I was wearing baggy pants or a mini skirt, so why wouldn’t that apply to the world at large?" This is a simple philosophical error. Aristotle lists as one of the accidents, that is, non-essential characteristics of a substance, the manner in which one dresses (vestition). Obviously to change the way one dresses does not change one's substance, one's essence, and by extension one's intrinsic dignity as a human person. No one is claiming that your dress does effect such profound, substantial change. The issue is that the nobility of man is expressed through accidents, and that one's substance may shine through well-ordered accidents. Everyone recognizes the effects of good grooming, of care of one's body, of being well dressed, of carrying oneself with deliberation, of speaking eloquently and persuasively. These are all accidents in Aristotle's terminology, but they have a true effect: they express man at his best, and when the accidents are disordered, they hide man's dignity, or better, they tar and smear it behind disorder. Modesty is a virtue that beautifies; if one is dressing in such a way that makes one positively or objectively ugly, then that is not modesty but a sham form of it.
We would do well to recall the summary of the moral theology of scandal contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (emphasis mine):
Morson concludes, "Nothing about my own values was altered, but the lens through which I viewed those around me changed." The sad thing here is that whatever lens we choose to view others or the world through is precisely determined by our values. We do not exist as "objective," detached (floating) thinking things ala Descartes. We exist in flesh, in the world, and pressed by our biology and our fallen, fractured nature. On the most fundamental, psychological level, the way in which we perceive, structure, and participate in the world is determined by what our brain deems as valuable and what our mind (intellect and will) pursues as good. There can be no change of lens without a change of values. But perhaps rather Morson means to confess that the scales of a lens she never really bought into finally came off her eyes.
Those roommates who confronted Morson failed on multiple counts: they presumed Morson's guilt; they presumed to correct without prudent consideration of the best means; they presumed to intrude into Morson's privacy; they presumed to represent the best of purity culture. They failed in all of these and more. But most of all, they failed to encourage. Our role is not to police but to encourage, literally to fill with courage, with fortitude and strength. And in this we must also be conscientious not to cause scandal as our Lord Himself warned us. The tragic irony of Morson's experience is that in being scandalized by the dress, that supposed sign of promiscuity, those fellow Catholics scandalized Morson in a much more profound and lasting way.
Experiences like the one described in the above article always strike a nerve for me. Not only is the behavior of the roommates described appalling in multiple ways, but the outcome and lasting effects it had on Morson only make the whole thing more tragic. I have seen something analogous with another person at my own college who began his freshman year as a self-identified traditional Catholic and because of excruciatingly negative experiences with other traditional Catholics ended up drinking the liberal Kool-Aid by the time he was a senior.
Yet why is the outcome of the author's experience tragic? A reader might get to the end of the essay cheering for the author and her newfound sense of freedom, of liberation from the poisonous aspects of purity culture. Indeed, the article is written in such a way as to evoke that sympathetic response from the reader. But the author doesn't just reject the poisonous aspects of purity culture. She rejects the entire culture itself: "My faith remained the same, although purity culture was no longer a part of it."
If by purity culture, we mean this sort of Orwellian, omnipresent surveillance and intrusion via secret purity police, who always style themselves as "friends," into literally the nooks and crannies of other people's lives, then of course, we should reject this culture, which isn't culture in any true sense of the word but a prison. On the other hand, the notion that "[n]ot having to worry whether or not my bare shoulders were causing others to sin was freeing, and if anyone, man or woman, thought it was their place to call me out, I’d inform them to avert their eyes if they couldn’t handle it"—this is simply not Catholic but classic liberalism and the attendant exaggerated individualism that we see today in feminism and most forms of libertarianism.
Morson summarizes purity culture:
In purity culture, the highest good is your virginity. It teaches that safeguarding your soul and your physical virginity means that you will be immune to the deep heartache of lost love. In other words, keeping your hymen intact means keeping your heart intact as well.Of course, given her experiences, Morson is hardly an unbiased reporter, yet she is not trying to be objective. Her goal here as throughout her entire article is to show not only why she rejected purity culture but implicitly why anyone should reject it. If purity culture means a commitment to ridiculously naive beliefs, such as a direct correlation between maintaining purity, physical virginity, and the affections of love, then we would be crazy to accept it in the first place. But Morson's caricature is simply naive itself. Who actually believes such things? And what should we make of those many virtuous women who suffer so much because they have a hard time finding a virtuous man, who may have had to end a relationship because they realize the man they currently love seem woefully inadequate to be a father or spouse? This common experience simply sets aflame the straw man that Morson has set up.
Morson continues: "A commitment to purity culture must be expressed in dress: You show the world how unblemished you are by dressing modestly." Yet this is precisely backwards. Modesty isn't virtue signaling, or at least it ought not to be. One dresses modestly because one wishes to remain unblemished, pure, chaste, virtuous, not because one wishes to peacock to others that one is chaste. Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter demonstrates this discrepancy eloquently. The world has nothing to do with it at least not in its fundamental motivation and principal purpose. The commitment to purity and its expression in dress is the result of consistency between believing that sexuality is a powerful and profound good, that man is fallen and prone to weakness and temptation, that we as social beings must build each other up and not be stumbling blocks, and the most effective means to preserve these beliefs and principles. Modesty, like all forms of temperance, is an external expression of an interior disposition, yet before it is a powerful statement to a rapidly degenerating civilization, it firstly ought to be the result of a powerful commitment to a virtuous life.
The moral theology of scandal (CCC 2284–2287) and the ways in which we can participate in another's sin (CCC 1868) clearly form some of the basic principles, the guide posts, by which any truly healthy civilization may emerge. Is the attitude expressed by Morson in the above quotation one that shows concern for the spiritual well-being of her fellow man, or is it more like the snide retort of Cain, who when asked by God where the slain Abel was, said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen. 4:9). There are extremes here to be avoided. What is tragic is that this woman was pressed into another extreme because of the opposite extreme that vilified her.
Morson's error is further illustrated by the following rhetorical question: "I knew that I was the same person whether I was wearing baggy pants or a mini skirt, so why wouldn’t that apply to the world at large?" This is a simple philosophical error. Aristotle lists as one of the accidents, that is, non-essential characteristics of a substance, the manner in which one dresses (vestition). Obviously to change the way one dresses does not change one's substance, one's essence, and by extension one's intrinsic dignity as a human person. No one is claiming that your dress does effect such profound, substantial change. The issue is that the nobility of man is expressed through accidents, and that one's substance may shine through well-ordered accidents. Everyone recognizes the effects of good grooming, of care of one's body, of being well dressed, of carrying oneself with deliberation, of speaking eloquently and persuasively. These are all accidents in Aristotle's terminology, but they have a true effect: they express man at his best, and when the accidents are disordered, they hide man's dignity, or better, they tar and smear it behind disorder. Modesty is a virtue that beautifies; if one is dressing in such a way that makes one positively or objectively ugly, then that is not modesty but a sham form of it.
We would do well to recall the summary of the moral theology of scandal contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (emphasis mine):
II. Respect for the Dignity of Persons
Respect for the souls of others: scandal
2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense.
2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea." (Mt. 18:6)
Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches the scribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep's clothing. (Mt. 7:15)
2286 Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion.
Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to "social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible." (Pius XII, Discourse, June 1, 1941) This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger, or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away from moral values.
2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!" (Lk. 17:1)If we have learned anything from the feminists, is it not that sexuality may be a form of power? Chastity and purity protect this power, the power of life, so that it may not become a weapon of death. Purity culture ought to be one that celebrates life in every true, good, and beautiful manifestation of it. There will be fear, for we are suffering from generations of emasculated men, who are weak in the face of exposed, raw sexuality. But the nurturing, the patience, the mutual concern of one for another, the fruits of the Holy Ghost, these ought to imbue and to till the spiritual soil of present Catholics as they strive not only for their own sanctity, but to lay the groundwork for a renewed West, for future generations of strengthened individuals who when faced with slighter—or greater—forms of immodesty will have the power of virtue to resist temptation.
Morson concludes, "Nothing about my own values was altered, but the lens through which I viewed those around me changed." The sad thing here is that whatever lens we choose to view others or the world through is precisely determined by our values. We do not exist as "objective," detached (floating) thinking things ala Descartes. We exist in flesh, in the world, and pressed by our biology and our fallen, fractured nature. On the most fundamental, psychological level, the way in which we perceive, structure, and participate in the world is determined by what our brain deems as valuable and what our mind (intellect and will) pursues as good. There can be no change of lens without a change of values. But perhaps rather Morson means to confess that the scales of a lens she never really bought into finally came off her eyes.
Those roommates who confronted Morson failed on multiple counts: they presumed Morson's guilt; they presumed to correct without prudent consideration of the best means; they presumed to intrude into Morson's privacy; they presumed to represent the best of purity culture. They failed in all of these and more. But most of all, they failed to encourage. Our role is not to police but to encourage, literally to fill with courage, with fortitude and strength. And in this we must also be conscientious not to cause scandal as our Lord Himself warned us. The tragic irony of Morson's experience is that in being scandalized by the dress, that supposed sign of promiscuity, those fellow Catholics scandalized Morson in a much more profound and lasting way.
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
"The True Seriousness of Modesty in Dress" - A Response
This post is a response to "The True Seriousness of Modesty in Dress": https://suburbanbanshee.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/the-true-seriousness-of-modesty-in-dress/
The blog post quotes a passage from an article on immodest dress in The Casuist (full citation below) and gives commentary:
All four of the above distinctions are important, for casuistry and technical moral reasoning is preeminently concerned with making the necessary distinctions, applying universal principles to particular circumstances. Yet an actual reading of the article will reveal the answers to the above distinctions and paint a very different picture than what the original poster seems to have intended.
The author first defines scandal and the types of scandal. He briefly summarizes how scandalous conduct may lead others into sin, not as an efficient cause but as an occasion of sin, that is, as an incidental or accidental cause. Then these principles are applied specifically to the concrete case in consideration, to a woman named "Claudia." In Claudia's case, the author writes:
With respect to 1), the author clearly allows that 1a) immodest dress may itself be a mortal sin and 1b) that it may give rise to mortal sin.
With respect to 1a), the author implies this when he says, "Immodesty in dress [...] will hardly ever amount to more than a venial sin." If it will hardly ever but not always, then in principle immodesty may be a mortal sin for the immodest dresser in some circumstances. This single quotation above, taken out of context, means immodesty in dress as an indirect scandal, that is, not intentionally calculated to cause others to commit grave sin. But if the scandal is direct and calculated to incite others to mortal sin against purity, then immodesty would take on the gravity of a mortal sin by the principles laid out in the article. In the first case, it is a venial sin against charity; in the latter, it is a mortal sin against charity and a mortal sin against purity.
1b) is self-evident from the principles of scandal itself. The gravity of the scandal depends on the gravity of the action that a scandalized person takes:
With respect to 3), while further study would need to be done to determine if the attitudes expressed in this article are representative, we can at least say that they are standard and established, for The Casuist was a well-known and trusted journal for moral theology.
And with respect to 4), it is simply beyond the particular scope of the article in question. The author clearly did not foresee the changes in fashion that would occur even 10 years later, let alone 50+ years later. The same moral theological principles apply today as then however. Outside of a larger study of male response to immodest dress, some of which has been conducted in psychology and sociology, which we may examine at another time, we need only look to the average male response on social media of various sorts to clear examples of immodesty. Examples and instances of different types may be multiplied endlessly, and the average man is exposed to far more immodest dress, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in all sorts of social contexts than anyone in the past has had to endure. A great number of responses to immodesty in popular culture and media (and the huge amounts of printed and digital media dedicated to different kinds of immodest female dress as they show up in all sorts of social contexts—public spaces and events, exercise, video games and movies, etc.) center around masturbation and sexual fantasies, which are in themselves grave matter.
According the principles laid out in the article, if a person intends through immodest dress to incite others to grave sins against purity and acts in a manner calculated to do so, that person commits a mortal sin of scandal and is guilty not only against charity but also "the particular virtue or commandment against which he incites his neighbor to sin" (26). It is becoming increasingly difficult to doubt that many women today dress precisely in such a fashion, and popular culture pressures women to do so. To take just one out of hundreds of possible examples, one famous song lyric says, "If you sexy, then flaunt it."
What is also interesting is the attitude that Claudia expresses regarding her dress:
Original Casuist article source: "Scandal by Immodesty in Dress," The Casuist 4 (1912): 22–27.
The blog post quotes a passage from an article on immodest dress in The Casuist (full citation below) and gives commentary:
“Immodesty in dress, at least off the stage or outside of masked balls,* will hardly ever amount to more than a venial sin. The custom of the country must be considered. Physical charm is more alluring than dress, and yet no one is obliged to destroy their beauty because others take scandal at it.”
There you go. Venial sin.Of course, such commentary doesn't make clear whether the poster is suggesting: 1) that the original Casuist article is arguing that immodesty in dress is always or only at most a venial sin; 2) who is guilty of the venial sin—the immodest dresser or the one committing lust; 3) that the argument(s) given in the article are definitive or even representative of the moral theological literature from that time period; or 4) whether and to what extent other forms of immodest dress in modern circumstances still fall under the same moral rubrics (e.g. it no longer is the case that as a rule the most immodest forms of dress in "civilized society" would be found on stage or at masked balls!)
All four of the above distinctions are important, for casuistry and technical moral reasoning is preeminently concerned with making the necessary distinctions, applying universal principles to particular circumstances. Yet an actual reading of the article will reveal the answers to the above distinctions and paint a very different picture than what the original poster seems to have intended.
The author first defines scandal and the types of scandal. He briefly summarizes how scandalous conduct may lead others into sin, not as an efficient cause but as an occasion of sin, that is, as an incidental or accidental cause. Then these principles are applied specifically to the concrete case in consideration, to a woman named "Claudia." In Claudia's case, the author writes:
We are inclined to think that she commits a venial sin. Immodesty in dress, at least off the stage or outside of masked balls, will hardly ever amount to more than a venial sin. The custom of the country must be considered. Physical charm is more alluring than dress [....] If some persons unknown to her take grave scandal by her conduct, such scandal is rather scandalum sumptum et non datum. [...]
She could scarcely be obliged, under pain of mortal sin, to change her style of dress, since it is rather her personal beauty than her dress that is the cause of the scandal. (27)When is scandal mortal or venial? The author states,
One may commit a mortal sin or only a venial sin in giving scandal. It all depends on the gravity of the sin that one foresees one's neighbor will commit. The action that I perform may be only venially sinful, and yet I may by it commit a mortal sin of scandal, because I either intend to incite my neighbor to commit a mortal sin, or at least I foresee that he will be incited by my conduct to commit a mortal sin. On the other hand, I may sin mortally myself and still only give venial or slight scandal, where I foresee that my action, although mortally sinful, will lead another only into venial sin. Consequently the gravity of the scandal one gives does not depend on the gravity of the sin one commits, but on the gravity of the sin that one foresees one's neighbor will be incited to commit. (25–26)We now have enough context from the principles of the moral theology on scandal laid out by the article to address the above four concerns.
With respect to 1), the author clearly allows that 1a) immodest dress may itself be a mortal sin and 1b) that it may give rise to mortal sin.
With respect to 1a), the author implies this when he says, "Immodesty in dress [...] will hardly ever amount to more than a venial sin." If it will hardly ever but not always, then in principle immodesty may be a mortal sin for the immodest dresser in some circumstances. This single quotation above, taken out of context, means immodesty in dress as an indirect scandal, that is, not intentionally calculated to cause others to commit grave sin. But if the scandal is direct and calculated to incite others to mortal sin against purity, then immodesty would take on the gravity of a mortal sin by the principles laid out in the article. In the first case, it is a venial sin against charity; in the latter, it is a mortal sin against charity and a mortal sin against purity.
1b) is self-evident from the principles of scandal itself. The gravity of the scandal depends on the gravity of the action that a scandalized person takes:
The action that I perform may be only venially sinful, and yet I may by it commit a mortal sin of scandal, because I either intend to incite my neighbor to commit a mortal sin, or at least I foresee that he will be incited by my conduct to commit a mortal sin. (26)With respect to 2), in the context of the article, Claudia's actions are under discussion, and the author is only "inclined to think" that Claudia commits a venial sin (27). But in general, who commits mortal or venial sin from scandalous behavior is clearly explained in the principles given, especially the quotation from pages 25–26 above. It should be noted that the confessor who submitted the original inquiry about how to handle Claudia's case states that he "knows that [Claudia] has been the occasion of grave sins of thought and desire to certain young men of the parish" (22), but the reason Claudia is only committing a venial sin against charity is because she did not intend to incite grave sins of lust in these young men who see her but only because she dresses immodestly for the sake of personal vanity as she herself admits, which is indirect scandal.
With respect to 3), while further study would need to be done to determine if the attitudes expressed in this article are representative, we can at least say that they are standard and established, for The Casuist was a well-known and trusted journal for moral theology.
And with respect to 4), it is simply beyond the particular scope of the article in question. The author clearly did not foresee the changes in fashion that would occur even 10 years later, let alone 50+ years later. The same moral theological principles apply today as then however. Outside of a larger study of male response to immodest dress, some of which has been conducted in psychology and sociology, which we may examine at another time, we need only look to the average male response on social media of various sorts to clear examples of immodesty. Examples and instances of different types may be multiplied endlessly, and the average man is exposed to far more immodest dress, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in all sorts of social contexts than anyone in the past has had to endure. A great number of responses to immodesty in popular culture and media (and the huge amounts of printed and digital media dedicated to different kinds of immodest female dress as they show up in all sorts of social contexts—public spaces and events, exercise, video games and movies, etc.) center around masturbation and sexual fantasies, which are in themselves grave matter.
According the principles laid out in the article, if a person intends through immodest dress to incite others to grave sins against purity and acts in a manner calculated to do so, that person commits a mortal sin of scandal and is guilty not only against charity but also "the particular virtue or commandment against which he incites his neighbor to sin" (26). It is becoming increasingly difficult to doubt that many women today dress precisely in such a fashion, and popular culture pressures women to do so. To take just one out of hundreds of possible examples, one famous song lyric says, "If you sexy, then flaunt it."
What is also interesting is the attitude that Claudia expresses regarding her dress:
If others think evil on [Claudia's] account, they do so because they are evil-minded, and that it is no concern of hers. She does not propose to dress like a nun, just because some people happen to be disposed to think evil. The evil that they think must be ascribed to their own impure minds, and not to her way of dressing. (22)This is exactly the attitude of modern feminists and anti-modesty promoters. Maybe in 1912 this attitude was more excusable when women's dress regularly covered almost every inch of her body. In 2018 it simply is not excusable and clearly marks the dividing line between those who promote the continual disintegration and destruction of Western culture and morality and those who fight against that collapse.
Original Casuist article source: "Scandal by Immodesty in Dress," The Casuist 4 (1912): 22–27.
The article may be found scanned on Google Books here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=rCdZAAAAMAAJ&dq=editions%3AsNGBHbI74AoC&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q&f=false
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