Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/413

 THE PROHIBITION AND CENSORSHIP OF

BOOKS.

Apostolic Constitution Offlciorum ac Munerum, January 25, 1897.

Of all the official duties which We are bound most carefully and most diligently to fulfill in this supreme position of the apostolate, the chief and principal duty is to watch assiduously and earnestly to strive that the integrity of Christian faith and morals may suffer no diminution. And this, more than at any other time, is especially necessary in these days, when men's minds and characters are so unrestrained that almost every doctrine which Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, has committed to the custody of His Church for the welfare of the human race, is daily called into question and doubt. In this warfare, many and varied are the stratagems and hurtful devices of the enemy; but most perilous of all is the uncurbed freedom of writing and publishing noxious literature. Nothing can be conceived more pernicious, more apt to defile souls, through its contempt of religion, and its manifold allurements to sin. Wherefore the Church, who is the custodian and vindicator of the integrity of faith and morals, fearful of so great an evil, has from an early date realized that remedies must be applied against this plague; and for this reason she has ever striven, as far as lay in her power, to restrain men from the reading of bad books, as from a deadly poison. The early days of the Church were witnesses to the earnest zeal of St. Paul in this respect; and every subsequent age has witnessed the vigilance of the Fathers, the com