Newspaper Clippings

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Bishop Lucey Defends Principles of Censorship April 16, 1966 Reply to Critical Propaganda THE Bishop of Cork, Most Rev. Dr. Lucey, speaking in University College, Cork, to the St. Thomas Aquinas circle, said that propaganda against censorship of films and publications in the Twenty-Six Counties was very definitely both on the wrong lines and in the wrong hands. Those who disliked the Catholic Church saw this censorship as, in the main, religious censorship: those who disliked State authoritarianism saw it as, in the main, political censorship: their would-be intellectuals decried it as in the main literary censorship. His Lordship continued: "In point of fact it is just censorship of the indecent or obscene—that, and no more. Yet, how few, particularly abroad, realize this. Indeed, how could they when the propaganda against the censorship emanating from the publicists to it, it is because she knows with absolute certainty that such teaching and preaching are erroneous and pernicious. "If she does try to ban anything she has no concentration camps, no prisons, no systems of fines; in fact, no forces of any kind but the force of conscience to make her ban effective. "Communism, on the other hand, claims control, not over one aspect of our lives, but over every aspect of them. It is not for God but against God. Its concern with what is spoken and written is not whether they are true or false or liable to corrupt people but whether they serve the purposes of the party or not, and there is no defying its ban this side of the grave. "To lump Catholicism and a system like this together as unjust." PSEUDO PROGRESSIVES "There may be a case against the Censorship Act of 1946, but it is not the case being made by the pseudo-progressives here. Their all-out destructive criticism is, in effect, a case for no legal restrictions at all on obscenity of tongue or typewriter, for freedom not only to be dirty-minded oneself but to make others dirty-minded and dirty-tongued as well." Most Rev. Dr. Lucey referred to a recent statement by the Protestant Bishop of Manchester in which he claimed that Catholics were no better than Communists. "The Church makes no absolute everything authoritatively," said Most Rev. Dr. Lucey. "What she claims is to have the truth, not about everything, but about faith and morals. That truth is something given to her by God, not something she thinks up to suit the occasion. "If she objects to the teaching or preaching of what is contrary