"You should have asked permission to publish."
Maybe the legal changes in the Vatican are to blame for the extraordinary 'censorship' of Brandon Vogt and Fr. Zuhlsdorf in their attempts to disseminate the new encyclical, Lumen Fidei? Of course the enthusiastic New-evangelists released their versions the encyclical before the Motu Proprio was even released, but perhaps there had been a sort of in-house tightening of the reins on any sort of unauthorized distribution of any official documents beforehand? Just a thought.
.- Pope Francis took a step forward in modernizing the Vatican’s legal code today by explicitly listing certain acts as crimes – such as child abuse and genocide – and enabling the Holy See to prosecute any of its officials who commit crimes outside its walls.
“In our times, the common good is increasingly threatened by transnational organized crime, the improper use of the markets and of the economy, as well as by terrorism,” Pope Francis said in the opening line of his July 11 Motu proprio declaration.
“It is therefore necessary for the international community to adopt adequate legal instruments to prevent and counter criminal activities, by promoting international judicial cooperation on criminal matters,” the first Motu proprio of Francis’ pontificate says.
In addition to updating the laws, the pontiff also made them applicable to both the Vatican City State and the Holy See, which respectively operate under civil law and canon law.
The effort to update the legal framework of the Vatican City State was begun by Benedict XVI in 2010 as he sought to make its laws compatible with the challenges presented by modern society and the evolution of crime. - Finish reading here.
I realize the new laws have nothing to do with copyright infringement. I'm just suggesting that the concern to maintain control over who and how the encyclical is promulgated could have more to do with an atmosphere of increased security after the Vatileaks scandal than anything else.
Although I am a bit surprised that several people have protested and complained about the Vatican's right to control its publications and to require users to abide by copyright laws.
Copyright violators will be prosecuted.
They may be equating the Vatican City/State with secular governments; US government publications are not copyrighted, thus people are free to excerpt them or to republish them with no penalty.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting - so of all institutions the Church should be the last to worry about copyright. I heard Brandon Vogt is on the run now - just like Snowden.
DeleteForgot to add my 'what?'
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