Sofia 99 March/April 2011 22 R Censorship A SOF Member’s Plea from the West Country To my shock and puzzlement I have been subject to summary censorship from our local benefice magazine after a year of being included. Censorship has a long history but generally it means the suppression of information, considered objectionable, harmful or inconvenient to the populace. Which of the above can possibly apply to me?
When written ideas were copied by hand, scribes were easily subject to control, notably by the Catholic Church. After the invention of printing in the mid 15th century the Church issued a bull against unlicensed printing. While bibles and government information were available, dissent and criticism were controlled and in 1559 the first Librorum Prohibitorum, the List of Prohibited Books,was published. It was abolished only in 1966.
In the 17th century John Milton and John Locke had written about ideas and information being allowed to walk: a marketplace of ideas. In the 19th century John Stuart Mill had said individuals have the right to express themselves as long as they do no harm to others. If we silence an opinion we may silence truth. ‘If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and one, and only one person, were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing the one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.’ The 20th century saw many declarations of Human Rights, including the freedom to speak freely without censorship.
Yet censorship remains: Moral censorship attempts to counter a current problem as with, say, child pornography; military censorship tries to prevent another, especially an enemy, from seeing sensitive material such as combat tactics, or suppressing politically inconvenient information especially in wartime; religious censorship is deletion by the dominant religion of material from or about a minority religion; metacensorship is, roughly, censoring the idea that censorship is taking place!
Against all this my little bit of censoring seems to be rather trivial. Yet, I feel aggrieved in the manner described at the top and I want to pursue the matter.
Our benefice magazine is very conventional: the Rector’s letter followed by general items. Each of four parishes supplies its own items starting with church services and readers. The main items are summaries of last month’s events and reminders of this month’s.
Just occasionally there are specials, such as Visit of Chiropodist. My 300-word offerings were placed among the general items or on the last page. I email my pieces to the editor who assembles the magazine. He supplies it to the chief editor [the Rector] who pulls it apart then returns it for printing. My eight items over the year were all printed without change.
Then the editor alerted me: my pieces were under fire. Sure enough my October item was pulled. The Rector sent me a one-sentence email: ‘Following a number of complaints over recent months this is to inform you that your contributions are felt to be inappropriate for the Benefice Magazine and it has therefore been decided that we will no longer publish articles from you.’ Is this not summary censorship?
Has The List been revived just for me?
I wrote a two-page letter to the Rector saying that I had received no complaints. Indeed, I had had kind words and compliments; some even looked for my piece first. I pointed out the various subjects I had tackled: responses to previous items and three on contemporary issues. I pointed out their disclaimer: ‘Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily that [sic] of the publisher, chief editor or editor.’ I asked what the complaints were? What would make my contributions ‘appropriate’? My letter began and ended with references to censorship, freedom of speech and democracy.
Ten days later a Church Warden phoned to warn me off: the Rector was ill and under stress. He emphasised that my ‘opinions’ were not wanted. I took this as an acknowledgement of my letter and confirmation of censorship although he denied it was censorship. So a bit of meta-censorship there, too!
As I type, nearly five months have passed and I still have had no reply but I hear on the grapevine that the PCC has discussed it and that the matter has been to the Bishop and back. Meanwhile, I have submitted pieces each month to force his hand and show I have not rolled over. Has anybody else experienced such petty censorship and if so with what outcome? Help, please, via The Editor, Sofia. adio Rockall Sofia 99 March/April 2011 Philip Feakin reviews Eternal Life: A New Vision by John Selby Spong HarperOne (New York 2010). Pbk. 288 pages. £6.99.