Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 4:
The Catholic Church certainly condemns Communism, though not any lawful and genuine social improvements Communists may happen to advocate. She does not condemn Capitalism understood as a system in which some men contribute towards economic activities by investing their capital in business enterprises, whilst other people contribute their labor for just wages. But the Catholic Church does condemn abuses in the capitalistic system where the owners of industrial enterprises ignore their social obligations, exploit workers at will, think exclusively of their own profits with no regard for the human dignity of the workers; and who, by the accumulation of wealth and the control of credit, exercise an economic dictatorship with no thought for the general good.
That is typically Communistic class-war talk. And it confuses the abuses of the capitalistic system with the system itself. Present world conditions, to which the abuses of Capitalism have undoubtedly. contributed, do not make it impossible to get rid of those abuses. As those abuses are abolished, world-conditions will improve. The introduction of Communism is not the way to remedy abuses. That would only create greater abuses. If owners and employers will not themselves rectify abuses, then the democratic State can and should intervene by protective legislation on behalf of the workers, and by directive supervision of the national economy.
The attitude of the Catholic Church is not negative and passive, but critical and constructive. She condemns all abuses in the capitalist system but she does not deny that some form of co-operation between capital and labor is necessary for economic welfare. A well-regulated private ownership must be safeguarded against complete usurpation of ownership by the State. As regards Communism, the policy of the Catholic Church is not one of violent opposition, but one of reasonable, consistent and uncompromising rejection of its principles, principles which she declares to be opposed to natural human rights and the teachings of the Christian religion.
Communism cannot establish its regime by any form of natural evolution. It can gradually white-ant an existent system, subtly working its way into control to some extent by capturing key positions in influential bodiies. But once it is strong enough, it must turn to violent revolution if it wants to impose its dictatorship upon a whole country. Stalin himself, in his book "Foundations of Leninism," said that Communism means "a dictatorship untrammelled by law and based on violence," p. 33. The Communist "Handbook for Tutors" which was published in Sydney for the use of Australian Communists says: "The dictatorship of the proletariat is possible only after the complete smashing of the bourgeois State apparatus," p. 27. Nor is Communism a logical development of one system from another. The whole Communist theory is based on the fallacy of dialectical materialism, which holds that the clash of class-warfare inevitably leads to a higher synthesis in a classless society. That idea was borrowed and adapted from Hegel's philosophy of dialectical idealism, a fundamentally irrational and illogical system of thought. And Communism is no more a logical social development than Hegel's was a logical philosophy.
Capitalism does not. Many Capitalists may. And if these Capitalists will not do so voluntarily, then the State must compel them to submit at least those reasonable measures of reform which are necessary in the economic and social order. But keep it in mind that it will be impossible to get rid of Capitalism. At most you could substitute State Capitalism for private ownership; and there is not the slightest guarantee that doing so will result in an earthly paradise.
The Churches are not tied to Capitalism. The Catholic Church, I agree, does object to social reform as radical as the revolution demanded by Communists. But the Catholic Church by no means declares social reform unnecessary. She urges it, and has laid down clearly the principles which should both inspire and govern it. Catholics certainly believe that their true destiny can never be fully attained in this world; but they believe that a condition of attaining to that same destiny is their fulfillment of the duties of justice and charity on earth, and that they must do their utmost to see that Christian principles regulate relationships between men.
It is putting things back to front to suggest that systems corrupt man than that man corrupts systems. Certainly in Russia Communism did not change men for the better. Ex-Communists who have fled from Russia and written of their experiences all tell the same story�that they have had enough of the political control of ideas, of secret police, bogus trials and constant purges, of slave-labor camps and of the luxury of the officials. There may be abuses in other systems, but there have been much more terrible Ones in the Communist system.
you wrongly confuse materialism with material resources. Materialism is a philosophy which denies God, all supernatural reality, all revealed religion, the claims of Christ, the immortality of the soul, man's freewill, and the possibility of a destiny beyond that of this world. It is the complete negation of Christianity.
One who can speak of the necessity of ministering to the spirit, yet who looks to Communism for help, must be blind indeed to the true nature of Communism. You are the typical dupe, lacking adequate knowledge of both Christianity and of Communism; and your real trouble is, not that you have found the Church dabbling in politics, but that you have not found the Church. Study the Catholic religion. Become a Catholic. then you will see things as they really are.
Whatever may be said of Capitalism, no temporal trials are the cause of your weariness of soul. The cause of that is in yourself. You have not taken your Christian religion seriously. You know little or nothing about it and have let it be swamped by a selfish interest in earthly things, so that the absence of physical comfort worries you as if it were the chief thing in life. Were you thoroughly Christian your trials would drive you nearer to Christ instead of taking you from Him. You would rejoice to suffer with Him that you might be glorified with Him. And no worldly or bodily discomforts would leave you soul-weary. Nor, for that matter, would the transfer of all the wealth of the diabolical Capitalists to yourself satisfy the hunger of your soul if indeed you were hungry for God and His grace and every spiritual gift.
I can but ask how it is that you cannot see that your own whole outlook is dominated by an over-absorption in worldly things! Despite your use of a few Christian phrases, whose significance you do not understand, you regard temporal distress as the one great evil, Capitalism as the devil belief responsible for it, and Communism as the savior who will redeem you from it. Were you truly a Christian you would regard sin as the one great evil, Satan as the enemy to be resisted, and Christ as the Savior who will redeem you from all that could wreck your eternal destiny. Then, whilst devoting reasonable attention to the things of this world, you would bear patiently inevitable trials without soul-weariness, and even with interior happiness.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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