The Catholic Church and Communism

Two institutions could not be more diametrically opposed to each other than the Catholic Church and Communism.   The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for the salvation of souls and the liberation of humanity from sin and death.  Communism was founded by men under the direct influence of Satan himself for the oppression, enslavement and destruction of humanity.   The Catholic Church teaches that we should love God with all our being and love our neighbor as ourselves.  Communism seeks to supplant God with the state and destroy all religion.   

 
While advocating for the rights of the poor and workers, Pope Leo XIII also condemned communism in his 15 May 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum. Pope Leo XIII condemned socialism and communism for its abolishment of private property ownership, its replacement of the family by the state in raising children, violations of human rights, for antagonizing classes against each other, and suppression of religion.  While acknowledging the short-comings of capitalism, the Pope argued that socialist solutions were worse than the societal defects which they sought to correct.   See https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html   

 
The Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote and preached extensively on the evils of Communism.  “If a man believes in God, then he cannot be totally possessed by the State, for he is in relation to a reality which evades social control,” he wrote in his book The Church, Communism and Democracy.  “Communism knows that it cannot possess man totally unless it persecutes religion, which holds that man does not exist for the State” (72).  

 
In her 13 July 1917 appearance to the three Fatima children, Our Blessed Mother warned us about Russia and the need to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart.  “If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the church,” she said.  Russia’s errors were Communism.  Several months later, Communists seized power in Russia and thereafter, the Soviet Union was established by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and other Marxist luminaries.  

 
Alarmed by the spread of Communism in Russia, Spain and Mexico, Pope Pius XI issued the  encyclical Divini Redemptoris on 19 March 1937.   Pope Pius XI wrote, “Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse.”  See https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19370319_divini-redemptoris.html   

In a speech given on 8 March 1983, President Ronald Reagan spoke of the Soviet Union’s oppression of personal freedom and religion.  “Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness -- pray they will discover the joy of knowing God,” President Reagan said.  “But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.”  Reagan’s words were not hyperbole or rhetorical flourish or ideological demagoguery or Cold War propaganda.  He correctly discerned the true nature of the Communist Soviet Union. See https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-annual-convention-national-association-evangelicals-orlando-fl  

 
Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet subjugation, Communism is alive and well today.  North Korea, Belarus, and mainland China are all run by Communists.  The Soviet Union no longer exists but today’s Russia is headed by a former KGB official Vladimir Putin who runs the country in manner akin to Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev and Khrushchev.  Sadly, the Communist Era in Russia was not an aberration in a country with a long history of despotism and oppression. Historically, Russian governance has been dominated by paranoia, expansionism and oppression.  As George F. Kennan observed in his famed “Long Telegram” sent in February 1946 while a Charge d’Affairs in Moscow, “Basically this is only the steady advance of uneasy Russian nationalism, a centuries old movement in which conceptions of offense and defense are inextricably confused. But in new guise of international Marxism, with its honeyed promises to a desperate and war torn outside world, it is more dangerous and insidious than ever before.”   In practice, the Communist Soviet Union bore more than a passing resemblance to the most oppressive Tsarist regimes and it continues to influence the governance of modern-day Russia. 

 
As Communism has become fashionable in society again today, especially on many college campuses, it is necessary that we be reminded of how destructive Communism can be for the human soul and why humanity needs to embrace God.  The stakes are eternal.