p. 184, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 5, 1890

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 5, No. 23

The Canadian Supreme Court has just decided that in the works of Victor Hugo there is nothing immoral, even though they may be condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. The case grew out of the refusal of certain Catholic booksellers of Montreal to fulfill a contract which they had made to supply a customer with Hugo’s works, on the ground that as Catholics they could not sell works condemned by the church. The court very properly held that the Congregation of the Index, or any other congregation, could not make laws annulling the legal contracts between its own members and outside parties. The Catholic Review of this city complains that this is simply a Protestant decision, and that it places the booksellers in a dilemma: they must “commit a grievous sin by dealing in prohibited books, or they lose heavily by breaking their contract.” This, the Review thinks, “only illustrates a plain but much-obscured fact, that Church and State cannot ignore each other, even if they would.” It is evident that the editor of the Catholic Review would like to see “the Church” clothed with power to revoke civil contracts just as she used to do in the palmy days of the Inquisition. The bookseller was not obliged to make that contract; but having voluntarily entered into such a contract it was only justice that he should fulfill it. Let Roman Catholics make no such contracts, and they will have no such difficulties. No decree of any church can impair the obligation of contracts.