I remember my father going around the neighborhood on his feet asking store owners to at least get pornographic material out of view and, better yet, not to sell it at all. If they agreed to the latter they could post a Legion of Decency certificate in their window. This was a crusade sponsored by our local parish. I think the men who volunteered back then in the 1950s and early 60s were from the Holy Name Society. My father was. Then, just a few years later, Catholic schools were promoting sex-ed with episcopal approval. Liberal nuns and sisters were the worst. Now, in 2015, a few bishops are upset by some filthy new movie? Wake up dear bishops! You are very late to the issue. Say a word of remorse about your predecessors who pushed sex-ed and abolished the Legion of Decency, reducing Catholic laymen who were then militant to go back home and “forget about it.” If the Church should apologize for anything, its hierarchs should apologize for suppressing the Legion of Decency! Not to mention abandoning the defined dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church! Morals follow doctrine. Make salvation a matter of personal sincerity in belief and morals will follow the subjective suit. The bishops once had some moral power in the USA. Hollywood took note. There was money at stake. No more.
Free Republic, Rick Kephart: “The Legion of Decency was formed in 1934 to combat immoral movies. People took a pledge, in church, against bad movies. They pledged not only never to go to any morally objectionable movie, but never even to go to any movie theater that had ever shown a morally objectionable film!
This was very effective in discouraging Hollywood from making movies which would earn the disapproval of the Legion of Decency. And the Legion of Decency’s ratings were very strict, much more strict than the modern Catholic Bishops’ movie rating system (which has been sadly ineffective in influencing the making of movies).
Catholics used to be united, strong and strict, and then they were a powerful force to be reckoned with by the movie industry!
Around the end of the 1950’s, things began to change. The emphasis was taken off condemning bad movies, and a deliberate effort was made to make The Legion of Decency more `positive’. The pledge gradually faded out of use, until it was finally completely forgotten.” Read more here.
