THE CATHOLIC-COMMUNIST 'DIALOGUE'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010030-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 30
• Publication Date: June 30, 1966
• Content Type: OPEN

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"Problems of Communism"
May - June 1966
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM
The Catholic-Communist
Dia1ogue"
By Kevin Devlin
EDITORS' NOTE: The article below is the first of a regular series of commen-
taries by Mr. Devlin on developments in international communism, to appear in
every other issue of this journal. Comments and suggestions for topics to be
treated in the future will be welcomed.
iLs this a Communist congress or an ecumeni-
cal council?"
There was some excuse for the cynicism of the
bourgeois journalist who put this query after hear-
ing Secretary-General Luigi Longo's opening report
to the Eleventh Congress of the Italian Communist
Party (PCI) on January 25, 1966. In his four-and-
a-half-hour speech, Longo had dwelt-at icono-
clastic length-on the similarity of many Marxist
and Christian "values" and had called on Commu-
nists to undertake a "dialogue" not only with in-
dividual believers but with Catholic organizations
On leave of absence from Radio Free Europe,
Munich, where he served as political analyst, Mr.
Devlin is presently a Senior Fellow at the Research
Institute on Communist Affairs, Columbia. Univer-
sity, New York. He has published a number of
studies on Communist activities in the non-Com-
munist world and last appeared in this journal with
"Moscow and the Italian CP" (September-October
1965).
and with the Church itself. The delegates had
heard him voice fulsome praise of Pope John XXIII
and Pope Paul VI ("outrageous in its low
Machiavellianism," commented Corriere della Sera
sourly, and anxiously'); they had listened as he
repeatedly quoted papal encyclicals and Vatican
Council documents, adding:
In these and other recent Church documents we
find motives, changes and objectives which have
guided us in our struggle. Today, the possibilities
of an encounter between Catholics and Communists
have become greater, and there is a more widespread
awareness that this is the road which must be fol-
lowed if one wishes to change the present course
of international politics.2
' Panfilo Gentile, "L'Appello ai Cattolici," Corriere
Bella Sera (Milan), Jan. 27, 1966.
2 L'Uniti (Rome), Jan. 26, 1966.
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Longo's hope, in short, was that Catholics would
join in building the society of tomorrow. It would
he a `:socialist" society, of course; but the Catholic
collaborators, lie promised, would help to determine
its features. Meanwhile, there were certain firm
guarantees to be given. The Russian Mikhail Suslov
was among the foreign party emissaries who im-
passively listened to Longo's criticism of outmoded
"conservative ideological positions [which] identi-
fied the religious `ideology' as the opium of the
people" and to his further declaration that "just
as we are against a theocratic state, so we are
against state atheism. This means that we are
against the state's conferring any privileges what-
ever on an ideology, philosophy, religious faith, or
cultural and artistic school of thought, to the detri-
ment of others."
The element of political opportunism in these
statements, delivered from the rostrum of a Com-
munist party congress, was clear enough-particu-
larly when Longo took it upon himself to defend
the Pope and the Council against "the criticisms and
scarcely veiled attacks" of the Christian Demo-
cratic right wing, or when he urged that Italy
adopt "a neutrality parallel to the neutrality
of the Church, which has abandoned the politics of
blocs."
Nevertheless, political opportunism is only part
of the story. The emphasis which the Eleventh
Congress of the PCI placed on an approach to
Catholics draws much of its significance from the
fact that it is not an isolated phenomenon. It
must, rather, be seen against the background of a
wider pattern of change in the relationship be-
tween communism and organized religion, particu-
larly in Western Europe, in recent years. This in
turn has been the result of a continuing process
of ferment and transformation both in the Christian
churches (as expressed in ecumenism and the con-
scious adaptation to secular realities) and in the
Communist movement (revisionist polycentrism and
the consequent erosion of ideology).
Probings by the Church
On the Catholic side, this radical rethinking of
received teachings and revision of traditional at-
titudes has been associated above all with John
XXIII, the elderly "caretaker Pope" who jolted
his Church by calling for an aggiornamento, a com-
ing-to-terms with the modern world and with the
non-Catholic religious, political and intellectual
forces at work in it. The change in attitudes to-
wards what his predecessors had consistently anath-
ematized as "atheistic communism" was memor-
ably expressed, less than two months before Pope
John's death, in his encyclical Pacem. in Terris
(April 1963).' Instead of sweeping condemnation,
there was a tranquil warning against confusing
"false philosophical teachings" with the "historical
movements [inspired by these teachings] that have
economic, social, cultural or political ends." Not
only were such movements (Marxism was obviously
meant, but not named) subject to development and
change, but "insofar as they conform to the dic-
tates of right reason and are interpreters of the law-
ful aspirations of the human person, [they) con-
tain elements that are positive and deserving of
approval." This was startling enough; but Pope
John went further in suggesting that "a drawing
together or a meeting for the attainment of some
practical end, which was formerly deemed inop-
portune or unproductive, might now or in the
future be considered opportune and useful." Pru-
dence would guide Catholics in deciding "the ways
and degrees in which work in common [with Com-
munists] might be possible for the achievement of
economic, social and political ends which are
honorable and useful."
The line thus traced out by Pope John was
continued under his successor, Paul VI, and, as
it were, institutionalized-not without strong con-
servative opposition *-in the debates and docu-
ments of the Vatican Council, particularly those on
the Church in the modern world and on religious
liberty, and in the establishment in April 1965 of
a permanent secretariat for relrions with nonbe-
lievers (primarily Marxists).
La Main Tendue
Actually these altered Catholic attitudes and the
Communist response to them were not quite as
novel as they appeared to most. It was the late
French Communist leader, Maurice Thorez, who
had first used the now familiar phrase, "the out-
stretched hand" (la main tendue), in his appeal
to Catholic workers for political cooperation in
April 1936. Thorez's appeal was made within the
" For abridged texts of this and other papal encyclicals
mentioned later, see A. Fremantle, ed., The Social Teach-
ings of the Church, New York, 1963. For full texts of
all but Pacem in Terris, see F. J. Powers, ed., Papal Pro-
nouncements on the Political Order, Westminster, Md.,
1952.
4 Some 450 prelates, out of nearly 2,200 voting on this
question, campaigned unsuccessfully to have an explicit
condemnation of communism included in the text on the
Church in the modern world. They were hardly mollified
by the insertion in the final version of a phrase quietly
reconfirming previous papal criticisms of atheistic doc-
trines ("sicut antra reprobatur"). This nod to the past
was more than balanced by the open invitation to atheists
to engage in "prudent dialogue" for the betterment of the
world.
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opportunistic framework of the popular-front policy
imposed by the Seventh Comintern Congress late
in 1935, and the reaction from organized Catholi-
cism was predictably negative: the only significant
response seems to have come from a small group
of "Revolutionary Christians," whose monthly or-
gan, Terre Nouvelle (New Earth), bore as its elo-
quent emblem the hammer-and-sickle imposed upon
a cross.
There was, however, a response from some
Christian intellectuals, notably in a book entitled
Communism and Christianity,5 a collection of essays
by the Catholics Francois Mauriac, Pere Ducattillon
(O.P.), Alexandre Marc, and Daniel-Rops; the
Orthodox Nicolas Berdiaev; and the Calvinist Denis
de Rougemont. In the main, the essayists main-
tained a dispassionate emphasis on discussion rather
than polemic.? This was, in effect, an invitation to
a "dialogue,".but it was not taken up by Communist
intellectu, al's.
Apart from any reaction to Communist moves,
a ,mall but important segment of French Catholic
intellectuals was working during the prewar years,
towards a revision of traditional socio-political at-
titudes. The leaders here were Emmanuel Mounier
and the group gathered around his periodical, Esprit;
their "personalism" included a radical critique of
bourgeois capitalism but still kept them far from
the authoritarian and materialistic Marxist posi-
tions.' Later, the thought of Jacques Maritain
moved in a similar direction, with greater em-
phasis on representative democracy.8 Moreover,
these thinkers could claim support from the official
social teachings of the Church: for example, Pope
Pius XI, who harshly condemned "atheistic com-
munism" in the encyclical Divini Redemptoris
? English edition, with translator's preface by J. F.
Scanlan, London, 1938.
'The tone may be suggested by a few brief quotations:
"Communism has too often been refuted by controversial-
ists who did not know what it meant" (Ducattillon, op.
cit., p. 88) ; "In a period of acute social struggle, such as
we are witnessing today, the system which corresponds
best to Christian personalism is 'personalist socialism' "
(Berdiaev, p. 226); and "In adopting a position vis-a-vis
communism two attitudes are forbidden to a Christian at
the outset, on the one hand the attitude of systematic
hatred and suspicion, on the other that of a willingness to
defend an intolerable condition of affairs [in non-Com-
munist society] " (Daniel-Rops, p. 260).
' See E. Mounier, De la propriete capitaliste a la pro-
priete humaine, Paris, 1936. Cf. also the manifesto of
Mounier's group in Esprit (Paris), Oct. 1935.
? It is interesting to note that President Eduardo Frei
of Chile has acknowledged his Christian Democrat re-
gime's debt to the social and political thought of Maritain.
See E. Frei and I. Bustos, Maritain entre nosotros, San-
tiago, 1964 (cited by E. Halperin, The Christian Demo-
cratic Alternative in Chile, Center for International
Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964)..
(1937), had earlier criticized the-injustices of the
capitalist order in Quadragesimo Anno (1931).9
Between the mid-1930's and the mid-1950's, then,
France was the scene of the most notable prepara-
tions on the Catholic side for a future "dialogue." 10
During the same period, the major developments
on the Communist side took place in Italy.
The Italian CP
Even before the war, the clandestine, persecuted
Italian Communist Party was aware of the need
to come to some kind of terms with Catholicism
in the homeland of the Church. Thus, in Septem-
ber 1936 and again in April 1938, the PCI Central
Committee issued appeals urging Italian Catholics
to join in the struggle against the Fascist regime,'
which had also crushed Don Luigi Sturzo's Chris-
tian Democratic movement, and emphasizing the
Communists' "absolute respect for religious opin-
ions" (Sept. 1936 text).-
When Togliatti returned to Italy from Moscow.
in 1944, he reaffirmed and strengthened this ap-
proach, committing his revivified party (in his im-
portant policy report delivered in April 1944 at
Naples) to a constitutional regime that would
guarantee "freedom of thought and speech; free-
dom of the press, association and assembly; freedom
of religion and worship." At the ,Fifth PCI Congress
in late December 1945, he extended the list to
"freedom of religious propaganda and organiza-
tion." The new party statutes broke daringly with
9In fact, Pius XI hit both targets in one sentence of
Quadragesimo Anno: "It remains for us, then, to call
up for judgment the economic order as it actually exists
and socialism, its bitterest accuser; and to pronounce upon
them both a frank and just sentence." The Communist
charge that organized religion had, in practice, made it-
self the ally of the capitalist establishment contained much
truth-but it was far from the whole truth.
10 A major postwar development in France was the
Church's attempt to reassert its presence among the
"post-Christian" masses through the "Mission de France"
and the priest-worker experiment. This project was
halted by Vatican decree in 1954 but again authorized
on an experimental basis in October 1965.
11 Both these documents were reproduced in Rinascita,
Feb. 19, 1966. Although the Spanish Civil War had
brought Catholic-Communist antagonism to a peak, there
was apparently some tentative response to the April 1938
"Open Letter to Italian Catholics." In his preface to
the republished documents, Franco Ferri reveals that in
August 1938 talks took place at a Swiss convent be-
tween "Monsignor Rampolla, Secretary of the Congre-
gation of Seminaries, and the Communists Donini and
Sereni . . . in the course of which there was discussion
of political alternatives and of the basis of the real
guarantees contemplated by the Communists for the
Church, not only in Italy." Ferro adds that there were
"many [other] top-level contacts."
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all Communist precedent by offering membership
to "all citizens who-without regard to race, religious
faith, and philosophical convictions-accept the po-
litical program of the party." In the Constituent
Assembly of 1946-47, it was the decisive Communist
vote (in contrast to Socialist, Republican and Lib-
eral opposition) which assured the incorporation in
the Constitution of the Lateran Treaty, giving
the Church a privileged position in Italian life.
But the Communists' "outstretched hand" was
rejected-as it was bound to be in view of the ad-
vent of the Cold War and the persecution of religion
by the new Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
An anti-Communist campaign by Catholic leaders,
clerical and lay, helped to defeat the Communist-
Socialist coalition in the 1948 elections and was
climaxed in July 1949 by Pius XII's decree ex-
communicating Communists and their supporters."
Shortly afterwards the left-wing Christian Demo-
crats led by Giuseppe Dossetti were heavily defeated
at the party's congress. During the 1950's Dossetti's
follower, Giorgio La Pita, the "holy mayor" of
Florence, was among the few lonely voices calling
for Catholic-Communist collaboration.
By the early 1960's, however, attitudes in both
camps had changed considerably. In Florence,
Bologna and other centers, groups of "advanced"
Catholics were reconsidering Marxism in personal
meetings and through small-circulation magazines
like Tertimonianze (Florence). On the Italian
Communist side, the hand was repeatedly stretched
out-in the theses of the Ninth PCI Congress in
January 1960 ("action for an understanding with
the Catholic world is conceived as one aspect of
the Italian way to socialism"); in the theses of the
Tenth Congress in December 1962 ("the aspiration
toward a socialist society . . . can find a stimulus
in the religious conscience"); and in articles and
statements such as Togliatti's speech of March
1963 in which he rejected "the ingenuous and mis-
taken idea" that religious beliefs would fade away
under socialism.
Togliatti's remark presaged another turning
point: the emergence of Western Communist criti-
cism of established Communist theory and practice
regarding religion. This appeared first in reaction
to Leonid Ilichev's report to the CPSU Central
Committee in November 1963, in which he de-
nounced religion in traditional fashion as "dia-
metrically opposed" to communism and called for
an intensification of atheistic campaigns to "con-
12 Despite the aggiornamento under Pope John, this
decree is still binding on Catholics, as the conservative
Cardinal Ottaviani tartly recalled in August 1965
(interview in Studi Sociali, Rome). However, it has
obviously been ignored by large numbers of Italian Catho-
lic voters-which may have had something to do with
Pope John's shift in emphasis.
quer" it finally. Italian Communist criticism of
this "fundamentalist" line was belated and at first
restrained. Initially expressed in an article by
Professor Lucio Lombardo-Radice (Rinascita, July
4, 1964), it found fuller expression some months
later in the most interesting book that the "dialogue"
has , yet produced: 11 dialogo alla prova (The
Dialogue Put to the Test), made up of essays by
five Catholics and five Communists."
Difficulties and Dilemmas
The initiative for this joint work came not from
the Communists but from the "Lapirian" Catholics, i
who drew a rebuke from L'Osservatore Romano for
their pains. The actual effect of the "dialogue" was
to emphasize the "ideological" gap between the j
two sides-and; the limitations of any possible dis-
course. Thus, the Catholic participants generally
stressed that there was no question of political col-
laboration on the level of organizations; their con-
cern was rather to explore doctrinal implications
in a Johannine spirit of goodwill. For the Commu-
nists, on the other hand, political collaboration was
frankly the goal, however obscured by talk of "com-
mon human values." They were at pains to
clear themselves of the charge of opportunism and
strumentalismo (using others for their own ends).
They also insisted that what mattered was the
reality of communism in Italy, -not elsewhere; they
deplored the Soviet "call for a struggle against
religious survivals" (Delogu) and admitted that
in the name of "vulgar materialism" believers were
wrongly subjected to legal and civil discrimination
in the USSR (Lombardo-Radice)." Both sides
generally agreed that there could be no ideological
compromise; only the Catholic Zolo saw "the pos-
sibility of a doctrinal integration of some aspects
of Marxist humanism with aspects of the Christian
conception of man."
In fact, the Italian Communists were in a di-
lemma, torn between the legacy of the past and.
the demands of the future. Their problem was
formulated with unusual clarity by Togliatti in his
Yalta Memorandum of August 1964:
19 Florence, 1964. The contributors are alternately
Catholic and Communists beginning with the Catholic
Mario Gozzini, followed by L. Lombardo-Radice, N.
Fabro, L. Gruppi, R. Orfei, A. Cecchi, G.-P, Meucci, I.
Delogu, D. Zolo, and S. Di Marco.
14 Even when some public Soviet attitudes toward
religion were modified, Italian comrades continued to
criticize them as inadequate. E.g., see L. Gruppi's dis-
cussion of M. Mchedlov's Kommunist article of October
1964 in the March 1965 issue of Il Contemporanro (sup-
plement to Rinascita)-a special issue devoted to the
"dialogue."
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The old atheistic propaganda is of no use. The
very problem of religious conscience, its content
and its roots among the masses, the way of over-
coming it, must be presented in a different manner
from that adopted in the past if we wish to reach
the Catholic masses and be understood by them.
Otherwise our outstretched hand to the Catholics
would be regarded as pure expediency and almost
as hypocrisy.15
The outstretched hand was indeed generally
regarded as "pure expediency"-and not without
reason. Communist attempts to publicize the "mes-
sage" of Il dialogo alla prova through articles and
local meetings with Catholic participation were
weakened by obvious political moves, such as Pietro
Ingrao's call in January 1965 for a Communist
understanding not only with the Catholic masses
but also with Catholic organizations and the whole
"Catholic world" (it was assumed that his aim
was to exploit deepening division in the Christian
Democratic Party). This maneuver promptly back-
fired: , a week after Ingrao's call, the Christian
Democratic factions united to issue a National
Council resolution denouncing communism, and
within the next few months, the major Catholic
professional and labor organizations followed suit,
warning members against taking part in any
dialogue.16
But in spite of repeated warnings by L'Osservatore
Romano and the Italian Jesuit organ La Civiltii
Cattolica,11 the discussion nevertheless continued-
if only with scattered groups of Catholics and
their little magazines. On the Communist side,
this led inevitably to a further development of re-
visionist positions, usefully recapitulated in Luigi
Fabbri's recent book, I communisti e la religione.'s
Renewed Initiative
Across the Alps in France, meanwhile, the dia-
logue was developing along different lines. First, it
had less direct relevance to national politics, the
Catholic MRP party having become a minor factor.
Communism and Religion:
The Selective Approach
The various historic-social vicissitudes
through which each group of people or civili-
zations passed determined the crystallization
of beliefs, the creation of determined pre-
cepts or religious norms. In almost all the
globe and throughout almost all epochs, re-
ligion has held back historic-social develop-
ment. But in determined historic phases and
utilized by the ascending classes, it played a
positive role, it was utilized as a revolution-
ary banner. Engels indicates it in speaking
of the war of the peasants in Germany, and
Lenin himself does in a letter to Gorki.
"There was a time" he said, "when in spite
of the origin and real significance of the idea
of God, the struggle of democracy and the
proletariat was brought about under the
form of a struggle of one religious idea
against the other." Lenin adds that "this
time passed long ago."
This is true. But in the ideas of goodness,
,equality, fraternity among human beings,
which the Christian religion also speaks of
and which are reflected in the honest religi-
ous and sincere conscience of any believers,
there are elements capable of contributing to
an emancipating struggle. These elements
do not have their origin in religion as such,
but they have been taken from non-religious,
objective forms of relations between men as
members of society. Perhaps these elements,
instead of being a restraint to such a strug-
gle, might constitute a stimulus? Our re-
sponse is positive.- . . . Religion is an en-
couraging idea where the religious movement
supports the social transformations and
socialism.
" English text in The New York Times, Sept. 5, 1964.
16 Norman Kogan, "Italian Communism, the Working
Class and Organized Catholicism," prepared for delivery
at the 1965 annual meeting of the American Political
Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1965.
17 In this matter there is a notable difference between
the position of Civilth Cattolica and that of the French
Jesuit organ, Etudes. See, for example, G. Jarlot, S. J.,
"Le neo-marxisme Italien," Etudes, January 1966.
's Rome, 1965. Fabbri deals with the resistance of
:"doctrinaire" Italian Communists to these revisionist
tendencies and also devotes an interesting chapter to
relevant' ideological developments in Poland and France.
-From "On the Unity of Catholics and Com-
munists," by Santiago Alvarez, in Epan"a
Republicans (Republican Spain;, monthly or-
gan of the Spanish CP, No. 594, Aug. 1,
1965, Havana, Cuba.
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Secondly, on the Catholic side there was a con- Garaudy contributed to the left-wing Catholic
siderably higher proportion of clerical participants, weekly, Tentoignage chretien, in March 1965:
especially Jesuits and Dominicans. Thirdly, the
French Communist Party did not commit itself
organizationally to the debate to anywhere near
the extent that the P(.'1 did: the burden of Com-
munist discussion was carried, rather, by a small
number of individuals, notably Roger Garaudy,
Gilbert 11urv, Andre Moide and Michel Verret.
if the French Conununist conumitntcnt to the de-
hate has been less impressive than that of the Italian
comrades, it has been met by a more receptive at-
titude on the part of sonic French Catholics. For
several years now, Catholic spokesmen, clerical
atrrl lay, have participated ill the Communist-or-
ganizcd "Semaines do la pcnscc niarxistc."' In
:lurch 1965 the compliment was returned when two
Communists, G. Mury and J. Bruliat, attended the
"Semaine des intellectuels Catholigttes." =r'
The leading Communist spokesman has been
Roger Garaudy, director of the party's Marxist
research center (and editor of its theoretical organ,
Cal(iers du Cmmninnisnre, until "relieved" of his
duties in October 1961 together with a third of the
stall). His revisionist ideas on religion, developed
over the past few years, are most fully expressed
in his recent hook, Dc 1'anathein.e au dialogue .21
Like the Italians, Garaudy criticizes the Soviet-
Fast European model. In fact, he was the first
prominent W(.-stern Communist to do so: in Fcbru-
ary 1964, five: months before the Italian Lonthardo-
Radice spoke out, he told a Catholic-Comnutnist
seminar in Lyons that "we cannot as Marxists adopt
the present position of our Soviet comrades on the
religious problem, as given by Ilichcv. It is not
a question of tactics, but of principle." Garaudy
makes no doctrinal concessions; on the contrary,
he stands by Marxist materialism, holding to the
chiliastic belief that religion will eventually (lie
under true and complete communism. But it will
die of natural causes, he maintains, and there should
be no attempt to kill it. This strain of eclectic
revisionism was summed tip in an article which
-'Yhe "Week of Marxist "Thought" held at Nantes
in the spring of 1965 was devoted to Marxist-Christian
relations. See the proceedings in La Nouvelle rrilique
(Paris), May 1965, especially the contributions of Michel
Verret and the Dominican Pere Duquoc.
!"'See G. Mury, "Le dialogue se poursuit," France
Nouvelle (Paris), March 31-April 6, 1965.
"' Paris, 1965. See the sympathetic review by the
Dominican priest Pere Gardey, in Le Monde (Paris),
Dec. 10, 1965. From the Catholic viewpoint, De
1'anat/r, me au dialogue represents a considerable advance
from the rather condescending attitudes expressed in
Garaudy's earlier work, Quest-ce que in ,norvrle marx-
isie'' (Paris, 1963). Cf. also A. Maine, Corn,nurnsles
el rhritiens (Paris, 1965) and M. Verret, Les marxislrs
et in religion (Italian edition, L'atei.smr, mnderna, 196.3).
The concept of Christian love . . . is the highest
image that mean can conceive of himself and of the
meaning of his life; and that is wily Marxism would
be impoverished if Saint Augustine, Saint Joan of
the Cross, or Teresa of Avila hero me alien to it.
On this ground surely there can be a meeting of
Marxists drterrnined to understand, to integrate
and to realize the human '.substance' of Christian-
ity; and of Christians who understand the purifying
virtue of Marxism as against all the disincarnated
spiritual systems, and who are determined not to
desert man's struggle .22
In Italy and France the "dialogue," such as it
is, takes place in the open. In Spain, however, the
complex confrontation between religion and Marx-
ism proceeds in clandestinity, or in exile; it is
conditioned by the hitter memories of civil war,
and it is extremely difficult to trace its course. The
leaders of the Spanish Communist Party have re-
peatedly made it clear that they now place their
hopes in an alliance of anti-Franco forces in which
Catholic organizations would have to play an im-
portant part. The grounds for these hopes were
expounded-and exaggerated-in an article ("To-
wards an Alliance of Communists and Catholics")
which Santiago Alvarez of the) party Central Com-
mittee contribute(] to the June 1965 issue of World
Marxist Review.
Alvarez's main point is that "the Catholics are
our main allies today in the struggle' against
Franco," and he claims that "this process of. rap-
prochement has quickened in recent months." To
hack this claim, he cites examples of priests sup-
porting workers' protests in the Asturias and Ca-
talonia; anti-Franco movements among Catholic
students; a few Icft-wing'Catholic publications like
Cuadernos para rl Dialogo; the formation in Janu-
ary 1965 of the Christian Democratic Union with
a program of economic and social reform; and the
positions taken by individual lay and clerical spokes-
men-particularly that expressed by Msgr. Guerra
Campos, secretary of the Spanish hierarchy (whose
majority views he (lid not represent), in his ad-
Garaudy's article was reprinted in the dissident
revisionist Communist organ, Unir pour le socialisme
May 1965), but not in the official party press. It also
provoked disagreement on the Catholic side. On 'larch
30 the council of French bishops censured Tin,oignages
chri'liens for having published it (even though Garaudy
was answerer] by a theologian in the sonic issue). In
general, however, the French bishops have been much
more permissive than the Italian hierarchy and have dis-
sociated themselves from the positions of the "intcgristes"
on the Catholic right wing.
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ment" in many countries, and by the inflexibility
of most of the local Communist parties-is too com-
plex to be discussed in this brief survey.
The Problems Ahead
The importance of the Catholic-Communist dia-
logue, especially in Western Europe, is clear; but
so are its limitations. These arise above all from
the fact that communism-like Catholicism-makes
absolute claims affecting every sphere of life: as
Reinhold Niebuhr has said, Marxism is "an irreli-
gion transmuted into a new political religion."26
Consequently, neither side can compromise on the
essentials of doctrine-and the doctrines are es-
sentially incompatible. Moreover, the Communists
are, naturally, interested primarily in political col-
laboration, whereas wary Catholics generally insist
that any political cooperation be limited to what
a French theologian has called "specific objectives,
recognized as acceptable to Catholics, important to
the common good, in circumstances where there
is no danger that such cooperation will end by going
beyond the limits agreed upon" 20-which leaves
little scope for opportunism, even if one discounts
the weight of the past.
These limitations emerged clearly in the most
impressive personal confrontation that has yet taken
place-the Salzburg conference of May 1965, which
brought together some 250 scholars from both camps
to discuss "Christianity and Marxism Today." The
initiative came from the largely Catholic St. Paul's
Society (Paulus-Gesellschaft) based in Munich. The
discussion between theologians like Rahner and
Reding and ideologists like Garaudy and Gruppi
proceeded in an atmosphere of anxious goodwill; but
it moved on the level of ideas, not on that of prac-
tical politics. The conceptual and semantic gap
remained, and there were no concessions on the
incompatible essentials. The participants, however,
did resolve (by 200 votes to 20, with 30 abstentions)
that "the dialogue is possible and fruitful, and . .
must be continued and widened. They hope for
greater reciprocal information and mutual knowl-
edge, in the awareness that both the Christian
world and the Communist world are going through
a phase of evolution." 27
25 Introduction to Marx and Engels on Religion, New
York, 1964.'
20 Yves Calvez, "Chretiens et communistes," Revue
de faction populaire (Paris), November 1965.
27 For non-Communist accounts of the Salzburg con-
ference see Siiddeutsche Zeitung (Munich), May 4, 1965;
Die Presse (Vienna), May 5; and Frankfurter dllge-
meine Zeitung, May 5. 'For Communist coverage, see
L' Unitir, May 6; Zeitung vum Letzeburger Vollek (Lux-
embourg), May 7; and Folksstimme (Vienna), May 9.
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dress urging on the Ecumenical Council the need
for a dialogue with Marxists.2'
In appealing to these potential allies, says Al-
varez, the Spanish Communists are ready to offer
many guarantees and promises-including not only
freedom of religion but "aid to Catholicism by the
[socialist] state." But the contrast between these
magnanimous promises and the weakness of Spanish
communism (perhaps 5,000 harried party members)
'is striking. The available evidence suggests that
the opposition to the Franco regime comes today
mainly from non-Communist forces, with left-wing
Catholics playing a major role. Party Secretary-
General Santiago Carrillo's recent claim that "work-
ers' commissions" consisting of Catholics, Commu-
nists, and other leftist elements have been formed
"in all the principal centers of the country" 24 has
the ring of propaganda; and the dream of Catholic-
Communist collaboration in building a socialist
Spain seems far from realization.
Less significant developments in other countries
can be noted only briefly. In Belgium, for example,
an enthusiastic Communist reviewer (L. Goty, in
Le Drapeau Rouge, Jan. 16, 1966) reports that
Garaudy's De l'anatheme au dialogue "is selling
like hot cakes, and supply cannot keep up with
demand." But the Belgian Communists have made
little contribution to any dialogue. Much the same
is true of Austria. In Holland, the most "advanced"
Catholic community in Europe finds no partner
for discussion in an ideologically sclerotic Commu-
nist party. In West Germany, Catholic intellectuals
have made a notable contribution to the reassess-
ment of Marxism, but no response comes from the
clandestine Communists. North America has pro-
duced little beyond an "outstretched-hand" pam-
phlet by Gus Hall of the CPUSA (the decision of
the new Communist Party in Quebec to welcome
Catholic believers into its ranks will make little
impact on French Canadian conservatism).
There is no lack of significance in the interaction
of religion and communism in Latin America al-
though only in Chile does one find anything like
a sustained "dialogue" in the European sense. How-
ever, the Latin American situation-marked by the
growing reaction of some Catholics to social in-
justice, by the Church's links with the "establish-
23 Bishop Guerra Campos' address was reproduced
in the October 1965 issue of the Spanish CP's monthly
organ, Espafla Republicana, published in Havana. It
was followed by a long commentary in which the Com-
munist Manuel Azcarate criticized the Church's "reac-
tionary" past but welcomed Catholic collaboration in
building a multiparty socialist society in which Marxism-
Leninism would prevail "not by means of external
pressures but by its innate merits."
24 Interview in Komsomolskaia Pravda (Moscow), Jan.
1, 1966.
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But perhaps the most significant thing about the
Salzburg encounter is that the burden of Com-
munist argument was borne mainly by the Italians
and French. The East German, Polish, Czechoslo-
vak and Hungarian regimes refused exit permits to
the Marxist scholars invited from those countries; ="
consctlttcntly, only one Utilgaria n and two Yugoslavs
represented East European Communist views.
Early in March of this year, a spokesman for the
Paulus-Gesellschaft announced that a second such
conference would be held at the end of April, this
time on the subject of "Christian Humanity and
Marxist Ifumanism." He also announced that the
Polish phil icopher Adam Schaff, who was not al-
lowr-d to arttend the first conference, was among
those who had already accepted invitations.
=s The East German Robert Ilavcmann, the Pole Adam
Schaff and the Hungarian Georgy Lukacs were among
those prevented from attending. The Hungarian regime'
allowed three Catholics to attend the conference.
~" The official attitudes of the Communist regimes to-
wards religion vary quite widely, Yugoslavia and
Czechoslovakia now being the most liberal (Poland is a
special case). In general, however, administrative and
legal pressures against the churches continue. Consult
Religion in Communist-dominated Arens, the useful bi-
weekly bulletin issued by the International Affairs Com-
The greatest obstacle to the dialogue is the gap
between promise and performance-between what
Communists say in the West and what they do in
the East."" This fact can only strengthen the trend
towards revisionist reassessment of Communist
theory and practice in the West, and hence towards
the organizational fragmentation of the Communist
world. Moreover, the "dialogue" adds a little more
fuel to the flames of the wider ideological struggle,
since the pro-Chinese parties and fractions will
generally make no concessions to religion.10
All in all, the political profit which those Com-
munist parties involved can win from the dialogue
seems to he marginal. Time may tell what price
they have to pay in the revision of theory and
practice.
mission of the National Council of Churches, New York.
The Vatican's Secretariat for Non-believers takes cau-
tious note of the apparent evolution in Italian, French,
and Yugoslav Marxist positions on religion, and of the
contrast with East European and Soviet practice, in its
first report (Corriere delta Sera, Oct. 24, 1965).
'10 For one of many examples, sec the denunciation in
the Albanian organ Rruga e Partise (Party Life), June
1964, of the "Holy Alliance of imperialists, reformists,
modern revisionists and the Vatican against Marxism-
Leninism and Socialism." ,
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World Marxist Review
May 1966
Viewpoints on Current Problems
New Conditions of the Ideological Struggle of Communists
and Catholics
WORLD MARXIST REVIEW has examined in previous
articles the problems arising from the changes that have
taken place in the thinking of Catholic circles under the
impact of the social struggle. These articles, and particularly the
article by Santiago Alvarez, "Towards an Alliance of Communists
and Catholics", summed up the experience making possible joint
actions by Communists and Catholics, and the participation of the the Church". What lies behind these words?
latter in democratic movements. This subject is of exceptional We are living in the times of the transition from capitalism to
interest, especially for countries like Chile where the Christian- socialism. Marx wrote in Capital that the religious world is a
Democrats are in office. The attitude of the Catholic masses, of reflex of the real world. This real world is changing rapidly, and
their organisations and leaders, is of great importance for advancing with it its religious reflex.
the unity of the forces fighting for peace, the independence of. Marx explains that "for a society based upon the production of
14W nations and against the aggressive policy of U.S. imperialism and commodities, in which the producers in general enter into social
the omnipotence of the monopolies.
XXIII's initiative, wrote: "The difficulty is that Jesus Christ did
not institute the Councils.' Neither he nor the Apostles established
any explicit norms. It is an improvised institution, connected with
unforeseen historical circumstances. . . . Usually Councils are
summoned at times of crises, abnormal situations, when serious
danger threatens the Church."
relations with one another by treating their products as commodities
and values, whereby they reduce their individual private labour to
"Aggiornamento" the standard of homogeneous human labour-for such a society,
Last December the Second Vatican Council ended its delibera-
tions. Pope Paul VI declared in this connection that one could not
speak of the Council having "reformed" or "transformed" the
Church, but one could say that it had "renovated" it. Press com-
mentators use the Italian word "aggiornamento", meaning
"modernisation", to describe this new development.
A Change in the attitude among the clergy is evident also in
Chile: It can be said that in certain respects the Church is departing
from its traditional positions. Some of our views regarding the
Church are, therefore, no longer valid and need to be modified.
Unlike religion, Marxism-Leninism does not require "aggiorna-
mento", for its very essence is constant critical reflection, examina-
tion of reality and rapidly cognising the new. Let us, therefore,
frankly, carefully and dialectically examine the problem of Catholic
"renovation".
The Real World-the Basis of the Changes
The act of convening the Ecumenical Council signified a departure
from the dogmatic extremes associated with the personal dictator-
ship of the Pope. After the First Vatican Council in 1870 affirmed
the infallibility of the Pope, it was announced that there would no
longer be any need for such meetings. Pius XII based his absolutism
on the principle: "The Church, I am the Church". Numerous articles
published at the time in the Vatican repeated the sacramental
phrase: "The living directives of Pius XII are the direct and universal
norms of the faith." During his office bishops were reduced to mere
vicars of the Pope. The Council, on the contrary, is a collective
authority, and its recent meeting accented the need for partial
decentralisation which would create the prerequisites for semi-
autonomous initiative by the dioceses.
The authoritative Catholic commentator Rene Laurentin in his
The Dispute about the Council, which appeared shortly after John
Christianity with its cultus of abstract man, more especially in its
bourgeois developments, Protestantism, Deism, etc., is the most
fitting form of religion," and that "the religious reflex of the real
world can, in any case, only then finally vanish, when the practical
relations of everyday life offer to man; none but perfectly intelligible
and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen and to
Nature".
The process ofadequately reflecting society is extremely complex
and difficult. In our times too the protest against "real misery" is
expressed in the shape of "religious misery", "the sigh of the
oppressed creature", "criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of
which is religion", disillusionment which leads to critical reflection
and revolutionary action-all these feelings are closely interwoven
in the hearts and minds of millions of people.
The Standpoint of the Communists
We know of innumerable cases of deeply religious people taking
an active part in the struggle headed by the Communists, even though
this participation meant for them the personal tragedy of excom-
munication. We know of many families where the mothers or
,grandmothers who, although devout Catholics, helped their Com-
munist sons and grandsons in the struggle during the periods of
repression. They would return heartbroken from the Sunday Mass
at which the priest had anathematised Communism as being "evil
,from its very birth".
We explained to these families that at the beginning of the last
century Pius VII had intimidated fighters for the independence of
Chile by invoking the wrath of the Lord, and that Leo XII in one of
his encyclicals had denounced the founders of our republic as
miscreants. Now when celebrating the anniversary of the founding
of the republic the archbishops and cardinals praise the Lord for the
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victory which not so long ago they had cursed. And on Independence This denunciation of the anti-religious twaddle had as its purpose
Day, September 18, 1965, during the thanksgiving service in the to organise the working class, to raise its ideological level in the
Cathedral of Santiago, the priest, enumerating the most illustrious course of the social struggle and thus help develop the mass con-
figures in the national history, mentioned the name of Luis Emilio sciousness away from religious illusions. The determining factor
Recabarren, the founder of the Communist Party of Chile. must be the actual progress of the class struggle, the guiding principle
Anti-communism isolated the Church, erected a wall of distrust -concrete conditions, without "transforming what is a shifting
around it which blocked its access to the hearts of people. In many and relative boundary into an absolute boundary"(Lenin). R
villages the peasants regarded the visiting monks as the direct In Latin America reactionaries have always exploited the religious
accomplices of the landlords. In the mining villages the presence differences in the working class. This has always been an obstacle
of priests was considered a bad omen. In the past decade the number to developing mass movements. In this connection it should be
of people dedicating themselves to religion has sharply decreased. roted that in view of the growing role of women in society, to,
Congregations too are becoming smaller; parish priests in poor identify their religious sentiment with counter-revolutionary posi-
areas have told us that their rejection of anti-communism has made lions can only keep them away from the common struggle.
their work easier, had given them new possibilities for regaining the Communists are now using all possibilities to promote unity of the
confidence of the people. working class and the people and to foil attempts to divide them.
The attitude of the Communist Party of Chile to religion has
always been consistently Marxist. True, there was a time, shortly
after the Party was founded in 1912 (as the Socialist Workers' TheBeginnings of a Process
Party), when it was influenced by the anti-clericalism of a section We fully appreciate-the importance of the new policy of the
of the bourgeoisie and by the anarchists, when it sent lecturers to Catholics. Although some people believe that, apart from certain
working-class centres who satirised religious practices. Even outward change, everything has remained the same, while others
Comrade Elias Lafertte, who subsequently became chairman of regard "aggiornamento" simply as a skilful, calculated move, we
the Party, was tried in his youth as editor of the satirical news- on the contary see the world in constant movement. We know that
paper El Bonete which lampooned the Church. However, before the class struggle is the decisive factor revolutionising institutions
long these methods were replaced by persistent ideological work and ideas. We are fully aware of the profound effect that the struct-
which far from weakening stimulated joint action by all working ural changes and the trend towards socialism are having on the
people against reaction. F superstructure in general, and on the religious outlook in particular.
In the 19th century the progressive attitude of the liberal elements And we were not surprised by the convening of the Council which
of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie was identified with anti- was summoned to register the irremediable agony of values formerly
clericalism. During the latter part of the century when the radicals exalted by the Church, and the triumph of all that it had combated.
became the standard-bearers of the progressive movement the If religion were to die suddenly, without leaving any traces in the
secular trend gained ground, due primarily to the freemasons who minds of people, things would be simple and a requiem would be
opposed the Catholic Church. Later a series of anti-clerical demands enough. However, for a substantial part of humanity it is a question
were granted (the right to have secular cemeteries, civil registra- of a real drama of the conscience, often a question of personal
tion, civil marriages, freedom of religious rites, compulsory ele tragedy with the most unforeseen moral consequences affecting
mentary education), and in 1925 the Constitution was amended many aspects of everyday life. The process will continue for a long
to provide for separation of the Church from the State. However,, time, ultimately merging with the struggle for national and social
as workers gathered from their own experience, the amended, liberation.
Constitution did not put an end to the regime of exploitation.,
They continued the struggle on a different plane, at the same time The Instability of Religious Norms
carrying foward the correctly understood anti-clerical traditions. One of the theologists who participated in the Second Vatican
In our times these traditions are reflected in the movement to extend Council, the Jesuit, Karl Rahner, in an article published in Stinunen
the network of state educational institutions with a scientific der Zeit testified that "some Catholics welcome the Council and
approach to instruction, in opposition to interference by the its work with enthusiasm since it represents the beginning so long
Church in politics, in the fight against religious intolerance. awaited and which very nearly came too late".
In his article "Emigrant Literature". Engels ridiculed the pro- The old Catholic thesis: Stat Crus duo rvolvitur orhis ("the world
gramme of the Blanquists which stated that: "There is no room changes, but the Iloly Cross remains") has lost its pull. This thesis
for priests in the Commune, every religious manifestation, every never corresponded to historical reality. Rut even the elementary
religious organisation must be prohibited". He wrote in this connee- concepts of religious thinking which were used to prevent the
tion: "This much is sure: the only service that can be rendered masses from being drawn up into the revolutionary movement,
to God today is to declare atheism a compulsory article of faith are now losing their former effectiveness.
and to outdo Bismarck's Kirchenkulturkampf by prohibiting Finding themselves compelled to combat the danger of the
religion in general...." In his Anti-Duhring, he expressed himself collapse of the fundamental doctrines of Catholicism, ecclesiastical
in a similar vein: "Herr Duhring, however, cannot wait until commentators had to differentiate between immutable Divine right
religion dies this, its natural, death. He proceeds in more deep- and Ecclesiastic right which are undergoing modifications, depend-
rooted fashion. He out-Bismarcks Bismarck; he decrees sharper ing on the zigzags of historical development. To avoid more serious
May laws not merely against catholicism, but against all religion difficulties they have warned: "Doubts might arise about sonic
whatsoever; he incites his gendarmes of the future against religion particular law being ordained by God, and hence immutable".
and thereby helps it to martyrdom and a prolonged lease of life. Great indeed is the effect on the faithful of the doubts about the
Wherever we_turn, we find_specifically Prussian socialism."' religious canons, and also of the Church's recognition that a large
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part of its commandments, laws, proscriptions, prohibitions and omnipotence of the Almighty by no means implies rejection of
grants of absolution are determined by circumstances and not individual responsibility or it lessening of efforts to change things",
in any way by "revelations". "the need to do one's best", "love thy brother, which signifies all
people and is aimed at achieving universal good", and "profound
respect for all forms of human activity".
The Democratisation in the Church
For nearly two thousand years the dominant tendency in Catholi-;
cisni was submission to an external, superior will. It was the religion .! The Crisis of the "Social Doctrine" of the Church
preached by emperors, slaveowners, feudal lords, capitalists, The policy of "aggiornamento", continued by the Second Vatican
imperialists. But alongside this there was another powerful, though Council despite numerous deviations and vacillations, has been
subordinate and submerged, tendency, that of "love thy neighbour", necessitated by the disintegration of the so-called "social doctrine"
found chiefly among the masses of the exploited. Marxism has of the Church, the reactionary tenets of which have been disproved
always stressed the difference between these two tendencies. The. by experience. This doctrine was first expounded in 1891 by Leo
centuries-old contradictions in Catholicism, which stem from such XIII in his encyclical "Rerum Noverum" and amplified in 1931 by
XII
Pi
"
"
us
, and by
quadragesimo Anno
factors as the spirit of solidarity and the spirit of antagonism Pius XI in his encyclical
inherent in this religion, are now developing on a new plane and in his radio message of Pentecost in June 1941. These documents
are no longer determined by purely internal impulses but by the are wholly in the spirit of "Quanta Cura" (1864) and other Vatican
changes taking place in the world. acts which condemn both liberalism and socialism, refer to the
the Second Vatican secular State as being impious and absurd, and declare war on
istered
re
bl
h
g
ange
e c
The most nota
J.
which makes it i freedom of the press, freedom of conscience,. not to mention science.
atisation in the Church
i
d
il i
,
emocr
n
s it certa
Counc
possible for the faithful to exert it greater influence. According to the "social doctrine" of the Church "it is unthink-
This democratisation is manifested in the changing of the Church, j able that all people in civil society should rise to the same level".
for centuries patterned as an absolute monarchy, into "the children; "It is man's lot to suffer and endure. No matter how hard man
of God", in a reassessment of the role of believers who, while tries, no matter what efforts he exerts, he will not be able completely
continuing to be subordinate to the decisions of the Bishops, will to remove these inconveniences from the life of humanity." As for
meet at national episcopal conference possessing it certain degree the Socialists "all their efforts against Nature are in vain". "All
ower derives from God and is a manifestation of the works of
of autonomy. Clearly this will enable many leaders of Catholic organ- p
isations influenced by modern trends to adopt a more progressive God." "Private property should not be burdened with excessive
standpoint. The signs are that the ideological struggle in the Church taxes, for not from the laws of men but from nature comes the right
far from relenting, will gain in intensity. to private property; consequently, the public authority cannot
The rejection of gloomy rituals, of unintelligible symbolism abolish this right it can only moderate its realisation and combine
expressed in Latin and their replacement by ceremonies, prayers it with the common good. Thus, it is unjust and inhuman to exact
and sermons in the respective national language, signify more than from the property of individuals in the guise of taxes more than is
just rapprochement with the masses. The new is invading the equitable." ("Rerum Novarum"). "Grave harm is caused by those
domain of theology. For example, believers now have access to who propagate the principle that the value of labour is equivalent
religious books, and Scripture is becoming the object of different to the fruits of its production, that the remuneration of labour
interpretations. As we know, because of its ambiguity the Bible was should be equal to this value, and that the working man, therefore,
interpreted differently in time of tense class struggle by the con- has the right to demand everything that is the product of his labour.'
tending classes which sought in it justification for their views. The ("Quadragcsimo Anno,")
bequeathed The idea that exploitation of man by man, that capitalism, the
t Vatican Council
Fi
t
h
d b
li
,
rs
y
s
e
Papal tyranny, estab
he
to the Pontiff the monopoly right to interpret religious texts. appropriation by the capitalists of surplus value, anti-labour
'Nowadays this "monopoly" is beginning to lose its practical value repressions and inequality are all "works of God", opposition to
to some extent, which is a mortal sin, was spread in the most extreme forms.
One has only to listen to the sermons of some of our priests to For a long time the Church used its influence on behalf of the
reaii.' that there are two antagonistic trends of thought also in the masters and against the workers. It is true, some Catholic circles,
church in ('bile, and that the influence of the traditionalists is the forerunners of the present Christian-Democratic Party, advo-
steadily waning. catcd those sections in the "social" encyclicals which condemned
In his article "Religion and Development", published in the capitalist abuses. They did not adhere to the viewpoint of the
journal Mensaje, the Chilean Jesuit, Mario Zanartu, admitted that reactionaries, and they had the support of some priests and bishops.
Catholicism in Latin America, justifying the existence of the social But, as we know, it takes more than a few swallows to convince us
order by the will of God, condemned the desire for more or less of the arrival of summer,
radical changes, sought to concentrate the thoughts of the masses In Chile the Church for a whole century identified itself with the
"in the hereafter in order that they should scorn life in the present", most reactionary political party in the country, the Conservative
preached resignation to misery, fatalism, and so on. In the same Party, headed by the landlord oligarchy responsible for the
article the new, counterpoised to the traditional Catholic way of massacres and crimes perpetrated in the country. Incidentally, the
thinking, includes "a favourable attitude to changeadvocates "an party emblem was the crucifix.
interest in this life", "action to arrive at a more perfect earthly Playing on primitive prejudice and superstition, parish priests in
existence and improve its structure", the conviction that "the the villages and in the districts of the poor would ascribe s.itunic
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qualities to Communists. creation of men, being conscious, free and intended by nature to
Nothing, however, could prevent the rise of the workuig-class work in a responsible way, even if in their so acting they are obliged
movement and a mass Communist Party. The Church realised that to recognise and respect the laws of economic development and
its policy was not getting it anywhere. A similar process was under social progress and cannot escape from all the pressures of their
way in other countries of Latin Amet ica and of the world. The !environment."
crisis manifested itself in diverse forms and particularly in a wide- In "Pacem in terris" John XXIII amplified these tenets. In this
spread movement inside the Church for renovation. encyclical he departed from anti-communism and unequivocally
A . d
d
Possibilities for Joint Action
If we proceed not from abstract moral categories, but from the
actual requirements of the social struggle, we can speak of two
trends in modern Catholicism-of a theology that seeks to divert
the attention of the working people from the problems of the day,
and a theology which does not prevent believers from joining the
stream of revolutionary action.
In Chile growing numbers of young Catholics identify the very
vague and ambiguous concept "communitarian system", regarded
as the Christian ideal, with Socialism and Communism. The
Christian-Democrat deputy, Julio Silva Solar, in a book on this
thesis upholds "ideological pluralism", by which is implied com-
petition and even the possible co-operation of Marxists, Catholics
and people of other ideological trends in building socialism and
communism, understood as a social system in which there is no
private ownership of the means of production. Similar views are
shared by many deputies and also by most of the leaders of the
youth organisations of the Christian-Democratic Party.
The Communists, who are striving for unity of all working
people, do not reject this pluralism. In Chile the People's Front was
in power for ten years. Towards the end this democratic coalition
government included representatives of our Party. Communists
have been, and still are, the majority in some municipal councils.
And Catholics can confirm that never once have we used our
influence to the detriment of their religious feelings. Lack of mutual
understanding was due to the militant anti-communism of many
Popes who unscrupulously used their religion for reactionary
political aims. After the publication of "Rerum Novarum", prac-
tically every Vatican document (irrespective of its subject) contained
sharp attacks against the working-class movement and especially
against the Communists. When fascism was on the upsurge, Pius
XII heaped curses on "materialist and atheist communism".
John XXIII's "Mater at Magistra", written in much more
fraternal and humane tones, marked a significant change in the
style of the Pope; it heralded, in a way, a return to that image of
Christianity which was brought into being by movements of the
exploited, movements which in the past had been religious in
character and had usually been considered heretical.
But the most important new feature introduced by the encyclical
was its approval of socialisation, understood as "the progressive
multiplication of relations in society, with different forms of life
and activity and juridical institutionalisation". John XXIII
emphatically refuted the fears of his predecessors in the following
words: "Ought it to be concluded, then, that socialisation, growing
in extent and depth, necessarily reduces men to automatons? It is
a question which must be answered in the negative." As for the
social struggle in the epoch of the transition from capitalism to
socialism, John XXIII expressed his sympathy for it or, at any rate,
recognition of its historical necessity. "Socialisation", he said, "is
not to be considered as a product of natural forces working in a
deterministic way. It is, on the contrary, as we have observed, a
erstan tng an
recognised the need for joint action based on un
respect for the historical mass movements not connected with
Christianity.
New Campaign to Recruit Followers
Undoubtedly a considerable part of the hierarchy understand
"aggiornamentO" to mean the adoption of more modern and
flexible methods and shedding, so to speak, all that is redundant,
with a view to creating new possibilities for gaining followers. In
the case of these groups it is a question of making up for time lost
and of achieving by different means their old aims of ousting the
Communists, neutralising the mass movement and blunting its
militant character.
The Catholic propaganda apparatus has been reorganised
accordingly. A veritable army of sociologists is now at work. With
practically unlimited resources at their disposal, they are making the
fullest use of the advances in industry and sociology, in the system
of "human relations", publicity and education.
The International Catholic Centre of Social Research in Brussels
with its ramified network of branches is the principal co-ordinating
centre of this activity for Latin America.
An enumeration of all the organisations engaged in clerical
activity would take up too much space. Among the more important
are those grouped according to ideological trends of international
importance as, for example Opus Dei, also called the Sacred
Society of the Holy Cross and the Works of the Lord. A reactionary
integralist organisation, it has a membership of nearly 100,000
organised in 200 secret lodges in different parts of the world. Its
rival organisation is the "Left" Economy and Humanism, headed
by the Dominican, Lebret, who also heads several research centres,
and around whom are grouped a large number of reformist priests
and leaders of Christian-Democratic parties.
Mention should also be made of Columbianum (Genoa), a Jesuit
organisation for neo-colonialist contacts between Europe, on the
one hand, and Africa, Asia and Latin America, on the other. The
European-Latin American Centre is one of the branches of this
organisation.
Thus, a variety of trends are represented-from the "Right" Opus
Dei, to the "Centrist" Columbianum and the "Left" Economy and
Humanism.
We are witnessing an intensive Catholic campaign to recruit new
followers, a campaign which is being conducted much more effec-
tively than in previous years, and directly among the masses.
The "marginal" theory advanced by Christian sociologists
recognises the tendency on the part of all individuals to join the
social struggle, but notes at the same time that considerable sections
of the population have not been able to achieve this either in the
countryside or in urban working-class areas where women in
particular play hardly any part inpublic life; the same is true, they
add, of different social categories who have no access to culture.
The Christian leaders of the new type pay special attention to these
"marginal" sections which include people who have recently joined
the ranks of the working class, farm labourers, men employed in
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 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010030-5
small workshops and the members of their families not engaged in
production, and the petty-bourgeoisie. They appoint "leaders"
from among these sections, form organisations for them, act as
their spokesmen and channel their activity into reformism and
certain forms of class collaboration. They call this policy "popular
advancement".
U.S. imperialism has rendered very substantial aid to the Chilean
Church in its campaign to win now followers. it has supplied the
Church, through the American Catholic charity organisation, with
food, medicaments, clothing And money. The Chilean Cardinal,
Raul Silva Henriquez, heads the charity organisation Caritas
Internacional.
. Quite a few Catholic organisations are financed from U.S.
Imperialist Influence sources. One of the factors facilitating this is that the Vatican and
What is the attitude of U.S. imperialism to the new clerical religious orders invest their capital in those U.S. monopolies
policy? operating in Chile and in Latin America generally, which announced
In his interesting article, "The Ideological Offensive of Catholicism in advance their readiness to give part of their profits to aid the
in Latin America: the Social Sciences" published last year in the clerical institutions.
Uruguay journal Estudios, Manuel Facal noted that one of the
decisive factors contributing to the proliferation of new Catholic
organisations is the financial support given by U.S. and West
European foundations, mostly non-clerical.
Although the Gregorian University in Rome indisputably remains
the alma mater of this tendency, after the Alliance for Progress was
launched and, in general, beginning with the first steps of President
Kennedy's Administration, the United States became the second
centre. The Belgian Jesuit Roger Vekemans, the "grey eminence"
of the Christian-Democrat government of Chile, welcomed the
Alliance for Progress with the same enthusiasm. as his European
fellow-priests had welcomed the Marshall Plan. Vekemans has
established in Santiago the Centre for the Economic and Social
Development of Latin America, which has links with the Organisa-
tion of American States. This Centre collaborates with the Loyola
University in New Orleans.
The relations between imperialism and the modern clerical trends
are not those of unconditional' subordination of the latter to the
former; they are more in the nature of reciprocal relations. The
Latin ttw: kssn ('nrrttderatiort of Christian i'rade I inic'n5 (o gional
oli Imti5AtiOn ,tl (flit ltlwlt1Atlonlt t_~1c1ti'~kii Ilou of t 'hi h0mnb I iailC
U
nions), distinctly differs from the lnler-American Regional
Organisation of Labour (ORIT), although both oppose unity and
0 independence of the trade unions and the World Federation of
Trade Unions. Having failed to split the working class, the Latin
American, Confederation of Trade Unions set up its own organisa-
impop, the Chilean Trade Union Movement (ASICH) which trains
union officials and operates inside the unions. The Christian-
Democratic Latin-American Federation of Peasants and Farm
Labourers has, on the contrary, been able to establish parallel
organisations, which in the struggle for agrarian reform are
beginning to carry out joint actions with the Federation of Peasants
and Indians, an affiliate of the Trade Union Centre of Working
People.
The ultra-reactionaries in the Pentagon and the State Department
who consider violence and military dictatorships to be the lot of
Latin America do not believe in the effectiveness of the actions of
the clericals and, as it rule, view their reformism with hostility. It is
symptomatic, however, that a paper like El Mercurio (Santiago),
mouthpiece of the U.S. Embassy and known for its sympathies for
p
the "gorillas", should at the same time support the Catholic groups,
in power. In the crusade against communism both God and the'
Devil will do!.
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Some Catholics go Further ...
The religious world, in the throes of a crisis, is rent by many
contradictions. However, the theological changes, far from miti-
gating these contradictions, are exacerbating them. The result is a
deep-going moral conflict attended by many misgivings and far-
reaching aspirations. Many Catholics, including priests, go much
farther than the stand proposed by their colleagues who are anxious
to adapt Catholicism to the condition of the last phase of capitalism
in 'order to maintain contact with the masses, and to .retain their
influence, at any price, on the historical process. The well-known
and instructive example of the worker priests, many of whom have,
become imbued with the spirit of class consciousness, is now being
repeated on a wider scale. Imperialism's investments in some of the
clerical organisations might well lead to results it least expected.
There was it time when the broad-minced approach of the Jesuits
to the new social reality of our times setmed astonishing. In Chile
the Jesuit college San Ignacio educated several generations of
Christian-Democrats, the first to join progressive movements.
But the Jesuits soon systematised their aims in the framework of
reformism which Roger Vekemans hitched to the Alliance for
Progress, thus revealing its feebleness.
The reformism of the Jesuits is limited. It assiduously avoids
anything that might injure the U.S. monopolies. And yet the Jesuits
have had to release the deluge, held in check so long and whose
course they cannot block.
Although a ncu-colonialist trend was apparent at the Second
Vatican Council, with Paul VI as its main spokesman, the voices
of other prelates were heard during the deliberations, among them
H:~,'.- Camara of Brazil and Tchidimo of Guinea, who went
further. And it is not a question of individual dignitaries. Constant
contacts with Catholics in the trade unions, in residential areas and
in the mass movements show that a large number of them want tc
break with capitalism. The same is true also of many priests. Thl
men of this trend sincerely believe that the democratisation of their
churches would be a truly Christian undertaking. They see the
riwaning of their religion in love of their fellow n1w11, in implil it
lnith in nittli: to these (. atholka their faith k rid obstticlo to being
revolutionaries; on the contrary, it helps them in the struggle. An
example of this was the life and heroic death of the Colombian
riest and revolutionary, Camilo Torres. .
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Unity of the Working Class and the Entire People A Creative Dialogue
We Communists are glad to be working side by side with Catholics, Joint action by Communists and Catholics does not mean
in the mass movement. We are all for unity of the working class and renunciation of the ideological struggle; but it means shifting it to
the entire people, for a united trade union in every branch of new ground. It is not a question of Communists changing their
industry, a united centre of the working people, it united organisa- principles for the sake of mutual understanding with the Catholics,
Lion of the residents of a particular settlement or area, a united or of the Catholics ceasing to be Catholics. A dialogue does not
centre of the mothers in a community, for organisational unity of mean striking a bargain: its purpose is to clarify the positions of
all mass movements without exception. There will be place in them the parties concerned in the interests of mutual understanding. A
for Marxists and Catholics, for Protestants and other groups, for dialogue presupposes a readiness on the part of both sides to seek
Communists and Socialists, Radicals and Christian-Democrats, , the truth and, first and foremost, to find an area for concerted efforts
National-Democrats and for people of no party. to achieve common aims.
The common denominator is basic class interests, Experience All their lives millions of Catholics believed the anti-communist
shows the need for united front action and rallying the masses.of slanders. We attach importance to the opportunities to explain our
town and country. At the dawn of the working-class movement in way of thinking, our aims and our methods. This will enable us
Chile the revolutionary trend, headed by Luis Emilio Recabarren, finally to lay the ghost of the notorious devil said to be embodied in
had to contend with anarchists and the "Josefinos", as the Catholic the Communists. We, for our part, will also finish with certain
workers were called at the time, since the Church maintained that prejudices and oversimplified notions, for we are vitally interested
Saint Joseph was the patron saint of their union centres. In the in correctly understanding reality.
beginning the trade union centres functioned on it regional scale For us Communists the dialogue is of greater importance than it
and were known as workers' communities. Subsequently, on the is for anybody else precisely because of the character of our doctrine,
initiative of the railwaymen the Workers' Federation was. formed, the boundless faith we have in critical reflection and critical action,
the first national union in the country. It was headed by the Con- our scientific approach to the world and hence our confidence that
5ervative Marin Pinuer. Owing to the fact that the unions in the the world is moving in the direction predicted by us.
industrial communities did not at first join the Federation initial The changes in the Catholic Church are a result of the changes
membership consisted mainly of "Josefinos". During the First taking place in life, changes for which we Communists hold our-
World War the Federation was joined by contingents of the working selves responsible with understandable and justified pride. We can
class with long traditions of militancy. Luis Emilio Recabarren but welcome these changes. They do not, and cannot of course,
became its general secretary. Ten years later official trade unions resolve our differences regarding the celestial world, but they
were formed with the object of undermining the unity of the working considerably approximate our views regarding the temporal world.
people. These unions enjoyed the support of the authorities and Although we proceed from different premises and use different
also certain privileges. The Communist attitude was that all workers methods, these changes make itpossible for us jointly to concentrate
should join these unions, with the result that the revolutionary trend on the issue of human happiness which pan be won only in struggle
soon predominated in them. against backwardness, exploitation, want and ignorance.,
After the Second World War the U.S. imperialists succeeded in Our times imperatively demand that the ideological dispute be
splitting the trade union centre, then known as the Confederation conducted in a way that makes for mutual understanding. Any
of the Working People of Chile. Undaunted by the split, the departure from our standpoint, even the slightest, can but play
Communists still fought for the unity of all unions. They insisted into the hands of imperialism which hides behind anti-scientific
that the minority supporting a split in the unions that had remained concepts of all kinds. Still, if the ideological struggle is to be efTec-
loyal to the old Confederation should have the same rights as those tive it must be conducted in a convincing way and must be linked
supporting unity in the unions that had been split. Before long, the with the fight for peace, bread, liberty, prosperity and culture. The
Centre itself, under pressure of the lower organisations, urged Communist style of ideological struggle facilitates joint action by
-"healing the split, with the result that the Trade Union Centre of the all sections of the working people, cements the anti-imperialist
Working People of Chile came into being. forces.
Respect for the creeds and political views of the members, public Among the questions worrying forward-looking Catholics is the
discussions at meetings, proportional representation of the respec. question whether different parties, holding different religious views,
tive groups in the leading bodies, reaching agreement with the and particularly Marxist-Leninist and Catholic parties, will be able
groups concerned on basic resolutions, using every opportunity to to exist in our countries under socialism. We believe that Catholics
arrive at unanimous decisions (in keeping with the rule of the -both laity and their representatives-as they come in direct con-
subordination of the minority to the majority)-all this, far from tact with the noble undertaking of socialist and communist con-
weakening the struggle, favours its development and hampers the struction will themselves join this process, enjoying the new rights
manoeuvres of the class enemies and the intrigues of their agents. stemming from their new position. The question posed therefore
Practice has shown that the Catholic workers do not always adopt applies to then rather than to us. We welcome all their actions
reformist positions or show insulTicient class firmness. Ideological aimed at freeing themselves from fetters, obvious and disguised,
convictions do not necessarily correspond to exact and auto- with the help of which imperialism has tried and is still trying to
matically defined views on the dcvclupmcnt of the class struggle. hold them back.
Even if Catholic workers are members of it group led by t'dth.~ti. At the end of last year a Chilean Parliamentary delegation visited
Action, or of a political party which acts as spokesman of their the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Catholic senators
religious principles, this in itself should not prevent most of these and deputies made some very positive statements. They no longer
workers from supporting the Communists for purely class reasons. doubt that'socialism is a viable force and a very promising reality.
But this requires a correct approach not only to the revolutionary This is a sign of the times. But even more so is the fact that millions
perspective and to politics in general, but also to the minor problems of Catholics in town and country are gaining a new understanding
and concrete issues worrying the working people and their families. of socialism and of Communists.
In other words, it demands that all organisations of the Communist
Party master the art of being a heedful, thoughtful vanguard.
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