It is therefore one of the supreme necessities, of our times to watch
and to labour to the end that the motion picture be no longer a school of
corruption but that it be transformed into an effectual instrument for the
education and the elevation of mankind.
And here We record with pleasure that certain Governments, in their
anxiety for the influence exercised by the cinema in the moral and educational
fields, have, with the aid of upright and honest persons, especially fathers
and mothers of families, set up reviewing commissions and have constituted
other agencies which have to do with motion picture production in an effort to
direct the cinema for inspiration to the national works of great poets and
writers.
It was most fitting and desirable that you, Venerable Brethren, should
have exercised a special watchfulness over the motion picture industry which in
your country is so highly developed and which has great influence in other quarters
of the globe. It is equally the duty of the Bishops of the entire Catholic
world to unite in vigilance over this universal and potent form of
entertainment and instruction, to the end that they may be able to place a ban
on bad motion pictures because they are an offence to the moral and religious
sentiments and because they are in opposition to the Christian spirit and to
its ethical principles. There must be no weariness in combating whatever
contributes to the lessening of the people's sense of decency and of honour.
This is an obligation which binds not only the Bishops but also the
faithful and all decent men who are solicitous for the decorum amd moral health of the family, of the nation, and of human
society in general. In what, then, must this vigilance consist ?