Roman Catholics: The Changing Legion of Decency

What group gave its approval to films dealing with such touchy themes as unwed pregnancy (The L-Shaped Room), sexual fetishism (The Collector), infidelity (Juliet of the Spirits), and the emptiness of Jet Set life (Darling)! The answer: that stern old guardian of movie morals, the Roman Catholic National Legion of Decency. Despite its reputation as a censorious successor to Comstock, the Legion has lately changed into a surprisingly sophisticated appraiser of adult films; it is even dropping its rather arrogant and muscular name.

The Legion still holds firmly to morality in movies. Whereas it used to work with bleak negativism, banning whole movies for a couple of suggestive scenes, it now tries to operate critically, recognizing that morally good movies can be made about sinful topics, and in many cases merely arming the viewer to perceive a movie’s moral lapses for himself. The assumptions of the change are that the intellectuality quotient of U.S. Roman Catholics has substantially risen and that cinema has sharply improved as an art.

Founded in 1934 by the U.S. hierarchy, the Legion started out candidly to be “a pressure group.” Once a year, in early December, U.S. Catholics rose as a body in church to say: “I condemn indecent and immoral motion pictures,” and promised not to patronize theaters that consistently showed such films—a pledge that zealous priests and bishops sometimes translated into open threats of boycott. In 1954, Archbishop (now Cardinal) Ritter of St. Louis ordered his Catholics to stay away from all future shows at theaters that exhibited the Legion-denounced The French Line, starring Jane Russell.

A Remarkable Invention. In 1956, New York’s Francis Cardinal Spellman condemned both the prurience and lechery in Baby Doll—a judgment delivered in the exercise of a right, but nonetheless one widely criticized as employing a pulpit so powerful that the denunciation amounted to censorship. But a change of climate was taking place, and in 1957 Pope Pius XIIs encyclical Miranda Prorsus (The Remarkable Inventions) suggested that Catholics should be more concerned about encouraging good movies than condemning bad ones.

A revised pledge, gradually introduced into U.S. churches, asked Catholics not to condemn but to “promote what is morally and artistically good” in movies. The ranks of Legion reviewers, previously dominated by a coterie of middle-aging Catholic college alumnae, were expanded to include knowledgeable lay and clerical film buffs, ranging from Jesuit professors of communications arts to English teachers, writers and admen.

Thinking Man’s Category. The Legion once had four limited categories: AI, for general patronage; A-II, for adults and adolescents only; B, objectionable in part for all; C, condemned. Today two new ratings have been added: A-III, for adults only, and A-IV, for adults with reservations (dubbed “the thinking man’s category”). Almost every “problem” movie is viewed by the Legion two or three times—by its executive secretary, Monsignor Thomas F. Little and his associates, by a selection of college alumnae, and by the specialist consultors, who submit written evaluations of the film.

Generally the viewers are asked for an opinion of the picture as a whole and the reasons for their classification, at other times to discuss the moral implications of a specific point. The Sandpiper, for example, raised a question about religion: Was there thematic justification for making Richard Burton an Episcopal priest rather than a layman? The consensus was yes, but the Legion gave the movie a disapproving B because the Christian (Burton) seems to lose out morally to the naturalist (Elizabeth Taylor).

Something Still Wrong? Inevitably, the Legion now appears too liberal to some, still too cautious to others. Roman Catholic Film Critic William Mooring, whose “Hollywood in Focus” column is syndicated in 41 diocesan newspapers, charges that “moderates” have been replaced in the ranks of Legion reviewers by liberals—”chiefly influenced by Jesuits”—who have an unCatholic tolerance for immoral movies. But many people agree with America’s film critic Moira Walsh, herself a Legion consultor, who argues that something is still wrong with a rating system that can condemn a serious attempt at cinema art like The Pawnbroker for the sole reason that it shows a young woman baring her bosom.

The Legion is the only organization of consequence in the U.S. that makes an effective judgment of what is morally in or out of bounds. Legion officials note that many Protestants follow its ratings, which are carried by some secular newspapers, and that Hollywood producers will grudgingly excise scenes or dialogue in films for the sake of a better rating. Next step in the Legion’s metamorphosis is a change in its name to the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures, which will suggest less the naysayer than the subtle critic that puts an intelligent finger on what’s wrong with the movies.