(1969) The Seven Minutes (23 page)

Duncan took the prelate’s hand. ‘Cardinal MacManus, this is a pleasure.’

‘My pleasure, sir, and your kindness to accommodate me by coming such a distance. It was not my age or infirmities that kept me from going to you. It was, in fact, my knowledge that it would serve neither of us - might, indeed, be misrepresented in certain circles - if church and state were not kept separate in the public view, despite the truism that the religious and the secular may have a single goal.’

‘I quite understand, Your Eminence,’ said Duncan.

‘Make yourself comfortable,’ said the Cardinal, steering Duncan toward the long brown sofa.

Courteously Duncan waited for the prelate to settle himself on the sofa, and then Duncan sat down a few feet from him.

‘I shall not mince words,’ the Cardinal said. His voice was dry

and brittle, and sounded like wrapping paper being crumpled and balled in a fist. ‘When one is as old as I am, or as young as you are, one has learned not to waste words or time with interminable social amenities. My secretary informed you of my interest in the trial you are about to undertake and the Church’s desire to assist you as best it can.’

‘He did tell me that, and nothing more. So I am not quite certain what…’

‘ What to expect, eh ? You may be doubtful of what aid I can give you, and if so, that is understandable. You may think that I have you here merely to bless your crusade and to promise you my prayers. Well, indeed, I do bless your enterprise and I do pledge you my prayers. We have a rather good one on behalf of decent literature, one which received the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Cincinnati.’ At once, eyes cast upward, jowls shaking, he began to recite in a deep, crackling voice.’ “O God, Who hast said, ‘Suffer the Little Children to come unto Me,’ assist and bless us in our efforts to arouse public opinion, so that we may eliminate obscene and indecent literature from bookracks and newsstands. With Your Divine Guidance, may the laws be enforced so that this type of literature may no longer exist in our country and throughout the world.” ‘ He caught his breath, wheezed asthmaticaily, then resumed, ‘ “Virgin Mary, whose life is an inspiration to all, watch over us and intercede for us so that our efforts may be successful, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.” ’

Awed, Duncan whispered, ‘Thank you, Your Eminence.’

Cardinal MacManus’ hairy nostrils sniffed. ‘If that were all I had to offer you, you would have no reason to thank me. It is not all that I have to offer you. I have much, much more to offer.’ He scratched inside his stiff Roman collar, and the great jewel set in the heavy ring on one finger glittered, as he sat lost in thought for several moments. Then he crossed his arms, stared at the ceiling, and began to speak quietly.

‘I have said we have a common cause. And we do. Our enemies would like to believe that the Church’s only interest is in morality and religion at the sacrifice of freedom of speech. This is not true. We dwell in an ordered society. To keep it ordered and civilized, we must have authority and we must have certain restrictions. Without restrictions, we would have no democratic freedoms left after a time. We would have a godless, pagan society where anarchy reigned and only might made right. The Church wants freedom of speech. We wish to restrict only those who would abuse this freedom. As a Catholic editor has remarked, we do not ask for prudery, we ask only for prudence. We are not, as this editor went on, attempting to be arbiters of the national taste where an adult’s freedom of choice is concerned. We are interested only in curbing obvious obscenity and preventing its corruption of youth. We are defenders of real literature, even vulgar literature if it has

social value and is sincere. We are the opponents only of pornography, of pornography that disguises itself as literature but has no purpose other than to drive the young into lives of sin. This the Church stands against. I cannot believe that your law-enforcement office of the state thinks differently from us. It was not a priest delivering a church sermon, but a spokesman of the Chicago Police Department, who made the statement, “Obscene literature is wanton, depraved, nauseating, despicable, demoralizing, destructive and capable of poisoning any mind at any age. Obscene publications mock the marriage vow, scorn chastity and fidelity, and glorify adultery, fornication, prostitution and unnatural sex relations.” I assume, then, Mr Duncan, we are of one mind about books like The Seven Minutes?’

‘We are of the same mind,’ said Duncan with conviction. ‘We don’t want to weaken freedom, but rather reinforce it by eliminating those who would corrupt it.’

‘Very well. Now, in 1938 the Catholic bishops of the United States, also enlisting the leaders of many other faiths, established NODL - the National Organization for Decent Literature - and they did this, as they stated, “to set in motion the moral forces of the entire country… against the lascivious type of literature which threatens moral, social and national life.” Normally, in a local community action, it would be from NODL’s successor, CDL -Citizens for Decent Literature - that you might expect to receive the Church’s cooperation. However, because the Church views The Seven Minutes as an extraordinarily destructive force, because your case against it exceeds national boundaries and takes on international importance, and because the Church is uniquely equipped to give you special support in this trial, the Church has seen fit to extend cooperation from its very highest level.’

‘The very highest - ?’ Duncan repeated, bewildered.

‘From the Vatican itself. I have received instructions from the Cardinal in charge of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. Mr Duncan, it is at the personal request of His Holiness the Pope that the Sacred Congregation is volunteering its entire resources to be used on behalf of your case.’

Duncan’s confusion was complete. ‘You mean the Pope - His Holiness - he knows about our trial? I’m surprised - delighted, that he is interested, of course - but I can’t understand why he…’

‘I will enlighten you,’ said Cardinal MacManus. ‘And then I will help you.’

‘Please do,’ said Duncan.

‘To enlighten you, to explain when the seed of our interest in a case such as yours was planted, I must start at the very beginning. Soon after Gutenberg made it possible for books to appear in great quantities in Western Europe - that is to say, after 1454 - the Vatican realized that it must adjust itself to this new phenomenon. Until then the pulpit had been the primary means by which the

priest disseminated knowledge and faith. Now books offered to become a greater transmission agent for good. At the same time, the Vatican became aware of the power of books to spread evil, to subvert men’s minds and hearts and cause them to behave in ways harmful to society and religion. In 1557 under the guidance of Pope Paul IV, the Church acted. It drew up a list of books condemned for reasons of sensuality, mysticism, or heretical ideas, and it published this condemned list as the first Index Librorum Expurgatorius. During the four centuries since its initial publication, the Index has been brought up to date and reissued from time to time. Have you ever seen a copy?’

‘No,’ said Duncan.

‘Let me show you a recent edition.’ The Cardinal rose, hobbled to his desk, picked up a small gray paperbound volume, and returned to the sofa with it. ‘Here it is, five hundred and ten pages, listing approximately five thousand condemned books, each title listed in the language in which it was originally written.’ He opened the Index. ‘Allow me to translate a few remarks from a preface prepared for the 1929 edition, a preface included in this more recent edition which appeared in 1946. It begins,’ the Cardinal translated slowly, ‘ “Throughout its life the Church had always to endure tremendous persecutions of all kinds while the number of its heroes and martyrs grew steadily. But today there is a much more dangerous threat coming from hell: the immoral press. There is no worse danger than that and therefore the Church never ceases to caution the faithful against it.” ’

Cardinal MacManus halted, read silently to himself, and then he resumed. ‘Three or four paragraphs later, the preface clarifies the Church’s position. “It would be wrong to say that condemnation of bad books is a violation of human freedom, for it is clear above everything that the Church teaches that Man’s endowed with freedom by his Creator and that the Church has always upheld this doctrine against whoever dared to deny it. Only those suffering from that plague called liberalism can say that these restrictions put by a legitimate power to libertinism are limitations of Man’s free will: as if Man, being free of his will, were therefore authorized always to do what he wants.” Then the next paragraph. “It is clear, therefore, that Church authorities, by preventing through laws the diffusion of errors, by trying to take out of circulation those books apt to corrupt morals’ and Faith, do nothing but save frail human nature from those sins that by its very weakness it can easily incur.”’

He lifted his head. ‘Until 1917, the authority for handling the prohibition of books belonged to the Congregation of the Index. After that, the functions of the Index were taken over by the Curia office known as the Section for the Censure of Books, under the authority of the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office. But because the Holy Office was long associated in the minds of many

with the Inquisition, and to appease our Protestant brethren, the Holy Office was abolished in 1965 by Pope Paul VI. The work of the Index was then taken over by the less conservative Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it is this office with which we are concerned. Is what I have explained perfectly clear to you?’

‘Absolutely, Your Eminence.’

‘Mr Duncan, there are two principal reasons why a book may be condemned by the Church and thus listed in the Index. As far back as 1399, a manuscript was forbidden if it taught or told stories “sensual or related to matters of flesh,” or if it “aimed at destroying the fundamentals of religion” or “attacked or ridiculed Catholic dogma or the Catholic hierarchy.” In short, to this very day, abook may be condemned on the grounds of immorality on the one hand or heresy on the other hand. Because of immorality, you will find in the pages of the Index such authors as Casanova for his Memoirs and Gustave Flaubert for Madame Bovary, as well as Balzac, D’Annunzio, Dumas pire and fils for their sensual novels, and as recently as 1952, Alberto Moravia for his obscene books. Because of their anticlericalism, unsound theology, outright heresy, you will find in the Index such authors as Laurence Sterne for A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, Edward Gibbon for The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bergson, Croce, Spinoza, Kant, Zola, and more lately, Jean-Paul Sartre, for their irreligious commentaries, histories, philosophies. But very few authors have been condemned for both immorality and heresy. One of the few thus doubly condemned was Andr6 Gide.’

The Cardinal had begun leafing through his copy of the Index. ‘And one of the others double condemned in the Index was a novelist whose work was originally published in the English language. He was the second English-speaking novelist to appear in the Index - the first, incidentally, was Samuel Richardson for Pamela, proscribed by the Vatican in 1744 - but the second English-speaking novelist to be condemned by inclusion in the Index, and he was condemned for 30th immorality and heresy, was - well, here, have a look for yourself.’

Duncan accepted the Index and followed the Cardinal’s finger down page 239, and there, between ‘Ittigius, Thomas,’ and ‘Juenin, Gaspar,’ stood the name ‘Jadway, J J,’ and after his name the following: “The Seven Minutes. Deer. S. Off. 19 apr. 1937.’

Duncan looked up with surprise. ‘Jadway’s actually in here.’

Cardinal MacManus nodded. ‘Yes indeed. Had you not known that he was in the Index T

‘I’d seen something - in our brief about the author there was some mention, I’m sure - but I didn’t give it too much attention at the time. I had little knowledge of the Index, although I did assign my assistant to research it further, and I wasn’t sure this would have much relevancy in a courtroom. I thought I’d make a passing

reference to it, once I was certain that the Index still existed.’ -

‘Now you know it does,’ said the Cardinal. ‘And let me emphasize why The Seven Minutes is condemned in these pages. I have said it was a forbidden book because of its immorality and its heretical attitude toward the Christian faith. True. But by the 1930s obscenity alone would not have made the Church condemn The Seven Minutes, especially since its obscure imprint, its appearance in a country not the author’s own, and its immediate banning gave it only a limited circulation. If you look through those pages you will find no mention of the Obelisk Press edition of John Cleland’s Fanny Hill or the books written by James Joyce, Henry Miller, William Burroughs. No, it has taken more than a charge of obscenity to earn the condemnation of the Index in recent times. Just as Boccaccio’s Decameron was not placed in the Index for its indecency, its immorality, alone. On those grounds, The Decameron might have escaped censorship. It was Boccaccio’s blasphemy, his attack on the clergy, this coupled with obscenity, that earned him a place in the Index. Indeed, when The Decameron was reissued with the sinning monks and nuns replaced by sinning noblemen and ladies, the Council of Trent was satisfied that the blasphemy had been expurgated. His Holiness then saw fit to remove Boccaccio’s work from the Index. So, you see, Mr Duncan, it is not immorality alone, but a compounding of immorality with blasphemy, that most surely brings the Church’s condemnation. It is this compounding of salacity with heresy that forced the Holy Office to proscribe The Seven Minutes. Yes, I have read the Jadway novel, and I cannot bring myself to repeat my feelings about the passage where the author has his sinful heroine - heroine! atheistic prostitute, I would call her - dream of Our Lord and martyred saints of the Church and take His name and their names in vain. A work inspired by the Devil, no less.’

Breathing nasally, the Cardinal tried to regain his composure. ‘But, foul though it was, The Seven Minutes might have remained a relic in the lists of the Index, out of print and forgotten, and of no further concern to the Church. In its time, as a result of the Index, it was banned in all Catholic countries, and, because of its obscene content, in other nations as well. It had enjoyed its one moment of evil and it was no more. However, when a heretofore reputable New York publishing house determined to revive it, the Church hierarchy was alarmed. I cannot say whether the Church would have acted against it alone. Perhaps we might not have done so, for fear of provoking old resentments in many quarters about our alleged repressiveness in earlier centuries. Fortunately, one man, an instrument of the state, and outside our faith, had the courage to rise above fear and strike at the horrendous beast loosed by the New York commercialists. You were and are that man, Mr Duncan, and we are proud to support your brave crusade.’ Duncan glowed. ‘Thank you, Your Eminence. I am moved by