One way that the Roman Catholic Church has traditionally tried to prevent the spread of error and heresy is by the use of the imprimatur. According to canon law, any book by a Catholic layman or cleric dealing with faith or morals must be cleared by a diocesan censor and approved for publication by a bishop, normally shown by the Latin word imprimatur — meaning "Let it be printed." In the postconciliar church, any kind of censorship seems anachronistic, and there is a wide spread feeling among publishers and theologians that the whole system ought to be abandoned.
The main complaint against prior censorship is that it is an unjustified restraint on intellectual freedom and encourages timidity in theological speculation. The imprimatur itself has been put to uses that verge on the absurd:
for example, the archdiocese of Mil waukee once affixed the approval of Archbishop William E. Cousins to a notebook in which priests could record the dates and hours of Masses said —even though the volume consisted of blank pages. Under church law, an imprimatur may be granted by the diocese in which an author lives, or where the publishing firm is located, or where the book is actually printed. Since bishops and their censors vary considerably in openness to new ideas, publishers frequently have been forced to display diplomatic ingenuity in finding a prelate willing to approve a touchy book.
Breadth to Scholars. In Italy, reli gious publishers have their own unofficial catalogue of bishops, distinguishing the easy marks from tough critics. Ital ian imprimatur seekers have found that bishops of smaller dioceses tend to be much faster in approving books. For that reason, the Sons of Mary Immaculate, who operate a huge publishing house, and a bookstore only a few hun dred yards from the Vatican, get most of their imprimaturs from Bishop Luigi Morstabilini of Brescia, in northern Italy. A theologian himself, Morstabilini has been discovered by other publishers as well, issues an imprimatur every two or three days. "Perhaps in contrast to other bishops," he says, "I recognize that it is necessary to allow a feeling of breadth toward serious scholars."
Playing the imprimatur game can be as delicate as finding a publisher for a first novel. A classic case involved The Layman in the Church, a collection of essays from Commonweal magazine that was published by Herder and Herder in 1962. Although the articles had caused no great stir when printed in magazine form, the late Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York refused to give his imprimatur; because Spellman said no, Herder and Herder was turned down by three other bishops — of Philadelphia, Rockville Centre, N.Y., and Harrisburg, Pa.—before getting approval from the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Since then, Herder has followed the lead of another Catholic firm, Sheed & Ward, in having its books printed in Vermont —for the sole reason that it can usual ly count on clearing them with open-minded Bishop Robert Joyce of Burlington.