A Commentary on the New [1917] Code of Canon Law (vols. 1-8) 1.0

PDF & PDF_OCR are 6th ed. (Mar. 1931). DjVu is Jun. 1918 ed. [can. 598](https://archive.org/details/1917CodeOfCanonLawCommentary/page/n1145): very interesting that wives of male rulers can visit male cloisters [can. 1252](https://archive.org/details/1917CodeOfCanonLawCommentary/page/n2570): > The Lenten fast and abstinence cease at noon on Holy Saturday, that is to say, at 12 o'clock. can. 1543 (DjVu pp. 2998-2999) regards charging interest / usury [Can a Bishop forbid some literature to the faithful under his rule?](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/71422/1787) Yes, as canonist Dom Augustine writes on [1917 can. 1384](https://books.google.com/books?id=2XbtF6Y21LUC&pg=PA465) (cf. [1983 CIC 82](http://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib3-cann822-833_en.html)3-24), > § 1. The Church has the right of requiring that books that have not been recognized by her prior judgment not be published by the faithful,1 and that those published by anyone be prohibited for a just cause.2 1\. "preventive censorship ( *praevia librorum censura* )," for Catholics only 2\. "vindicates to the Church the right of prohibiting any and all books which she considers objectionable," even for non-Catholics, "the right to control the reading of her children" is granted by natural law to > Paternal as well as political authorities [who] have the *natural right* to ward off anything that may endanger the moral and physical welfare of their subjects, and to protect them against bad surroundings, company, literature, etc., in fact anything that is apt to cause insubordination, anarchy, or moral decay. The Church, being an autonomous society, with subjects for whom she is responsible within her own sphere cannot be destitute of the authority and power which enables her to keep her children uncontaminated and to safeguard them against the danger of perversion. Of all the dangers that imperil man's salvation bad literature is perhaps the most destructive. Hence the **right to control the reading** of her children cannot be denied the Church even from the purely natural point of vantage. Historical facts amply confirm the necessity of preventive censorship in Church and State.1 > 1\. Cfr. the classical work of J. Hilgers, S. J., [*Der Index der verbotenen Bücher*](https://books.google.com/books?id=FhUqqtuXnnUC) , 1904.