lltEQyEENSWORJ( 3742 \\' cst Pine Boulevard ST. LOUIS. MO. What Catholicit~ an~ Communism H aOe in Common DANIEL A. LORD, s.]. THE QUEEN'S WORK 3742 West Pine Boulevard ST. LOUIS, MO. Imprimi potest: Nihil obstat: Imprimatur: Samuel Horine, S. J. Praep. Provo Missourianae F. J. Holweck Censor Librorum >f< J oannes J. Glennon Archiepiscopus Sti. Ludovici Sti. Ludovici, die 13 Martii 1936 Third edition, August 1937 ANY FINANCIAL PROFIT made by the Central Office of the Sodality will be used for the advancement of the Sodality movement and the cause of Catholic Action. Copyright, 1936 Qeaeld\~HE QUEEN'S WORK. Inc. What Catholicity and Communism Have in Common F IFTY years ago any man who wanted a revolution could go shopping among a number of salesmen. For world revolutions were being offered by a score of hawkers. And each revolution was guaranteed to change the face of the earth. The scientific revolution was in full swing with the absolute promise that, when the scientists had their way, we would have our heaven here below, with all the luxuries the heart could crave and long life to en· joy them. The suffragettes guaranteed that as soon as the women got the vote we would be blessed with clean government, the best possible officeholders, and roses in every polling place. The universal educationists were certain that, once everyone was able to read, write, and know the history of music, there would be peace on earth, intel- ligence in high places, and security for all. Revolutions Revolve In the course of the years those three revolutions, with a number of others, reo, volved. We concede that the scientists have done wonders to conquer space, to draw secrets from the universe, to harness the forces of nature, to conquer disease. But the saine scientific revolution which brought -3- l these blessings has also made war so ter· rible that tanks and bombs and poison gas and fiame sprayers threaten, should they break loose, to destroy our civilization. And the inventions of the scientists have thrown millions out of work. Woman suffrage has gone the way of universal suffrage. Dishonesty is still com· mon in office; graft is not unheard of; and the majority of the women, like the major· ity of the men, vote not at all or vote with a dumbfounding lack of intelligence. And while universal education has made it possible for all of our modern men and women to open the classics of literature and history, it has also trained the brilliant criminal so thoroughly that; no police force or law court can catch him or hold him when caught. Our crime bill is the largest bill we are called on to pay; the trained criminal has used his education to make of crime an exact science and a fine art. Two Remain Of the revolutions that, fifty years ago, promised Utopias, all are gone or discredited or distrusted, save two. Only two today claim the attention of the serious thinker. He can choose between the world revolu· tion that is Communism, and the world . revolution that is Catholicity. The most apparent difference between the two is that Communism is the far more conservative revolution. Protestantism is, of course, no longer a -4- world revolution. In fact it never had the world as its field . Protestantism was the revolt of individual nations which resulted in German Lutheranism, the Church of Eng- land, Scotch Covenanters, Swiss Calvinists, French Huguenots where formerly there had been the Catholic or Universal Church. Judaism is not a revolution; it is the strug- gle of a compact racial group to keep pure and intact racial traditions and character- istics . Communism and Catholicity, however, are world cultures, at least in their claims. They are cultures, religions, systems of living that claim to dominate or intimately affect lives and all that surrounds those lives: education, government, business, marriage, recreation, art, music, theater, all. Even FaSCism, which appears to be a third revolution, is really a new form of intense nationalism and the conservation of old hates and prejudices. Fascism has made the Italians, once broad and fiuent with the characteristics of an artistic peo- ple, turn their faces against the world. Fas- cism in Germany has stressed racial char- acteristics almost to the exclusion of all other elements, and Aryanism has become the cult of race and blood and nation. Alike and Different In a surprising number of things Cathol- icity and Communism walk step in step. In essentials, however, they are irreconcil- ably at odds. -5- The points of similarity and the points of difference are easy to discover. The clash between the two revolutions does not come over a question of property. The man in the street, asked to define a Communist, would undoubtedly call him one who believed that the central power should own and control all property, thus remov· ing forever the danger and temptation of private ownership. If this were a complete definition, the Catholic could answer: "Then the only practicing Communists in the world have been Catholics." While Russia moves back rapidly to the practices, the factories, the methods and principles of capitalism, large groups of practicing Communists, in this sense, are, wherever the Catholic Church exists, the Church's most outstanding memo bers. The early Christians practiced a vol· untary communal possession of property; all their goods were surrendered to a com· mon fund and used by all for all. Today every religious community practices a kind of Christian Communism: None of the memo bers owns anything; by the vow of poverty all give up their right to private property; they pool all their resources, which belong, not to the individual, but to the entire group or order or community. Property Assures Freedom The Catholic economist, however, knows very clearly why this is done and the con- sequences of it. The early Christians gave -6- up their property so that they could act more completely at the disposal of the Apostles and go and come with a more than military obedience in the work of Christ, unhampered either by the possession and care of property or by worry about food and lodging. The religious takes the vow of poverty because he also takes the vow of obedience. When a man has no p:roperty, when he depends upon the community for his food and employment and the tools he uses, he renounces a startling portion of his freedom. This the religious freely does, because he wants to be at the disposal of his superior in what he believes to be the cause of Christ. Under Many Systems So, quite shrewdly, the Catholic economist says to the Communist: "Though giving up one's property and right to property may be, under certain circumstances, a practice deserving consideration, it means the end of most freedom." Belloc some thirty years ago predicted that it Socialism (there was no real Communism then) became the prac- tice of any state, that state would become a slave state. For if the state owns all the property and wealth, it is the only employer. The citizens, then, have a simple choice: They work for that state, for that one em- ployer, or they starve. By giving up the right to property, they give up their free- dom. So it has actually proved in the case of Russia: One boss, one master, one em- ployer-the state; and should it be your -7- bad luck to incur that boss's disfavor, you get no job at all. Nor is the quarrel between Catholicity and Communism based on political systems. The Church has lived under every form of government: autocracy, democracy, the Council of Ten, constitutional monarchy, im- perialism, aristocracy, republicanism. Wisely it has -learned that ' good government con- sists less in external forms . than in the kind of men who administer those forms. It is possible for a good autocrat to give a country better government than a cor- rupt democracy. The tyranny of a small minority may wreck · the most liberal con- stitution and throttle the most widely dis- tributed political powers. Distrust of Dictatorship Yet Catholicity, unlike Communism, dis- trusts dictatorship. The Communist believes that the world revolution is to be brought about by the dictatorship of the proletariat. CatholiCity objects, on principle, to all forms of permanent dictatorship. Never was "the divine right of kings" held as a Cath- olic theory or principle. While this strange doctrine was being taught in England by Protestant James I, the principles of mod- ern democracy were being laid down in Spain and Italy by the Catholics Suarez and Bellarmine. Dictatorships are based on a great distrust of the ability of men and women to handle their own affairs; Cathol- icity believes in the essential dignity and reliability of the individual. Dictatorship -8- places too much power in the hands of one man or class; Catholicity believes that power comes from the people and properly belongs to them. Beyond that, Catholicity in its long his· tory has seen the evil effects and dangers of concentration of power in the hands of a man or a party or a small dictatorial group; from such concentration wars too easily arise; oppression and exploitation are too easily imposed upon the majority; the rights and dignities of the individual are too eas· ily suppressed. The conflict and the similarities between Catholicity and Communism, however, do not arise here. Points of Likeness First we take the similarities. Nothing is more startling than the fact that Catholicity and Communism both arose under similar conditions. Quite clearly the historian sees that, in addition to the human circumstances that surrounded its origin, Catholicity had a divine founder and moved forward by the grace of miracles. In addi· tion, however, Catholicity, like Communism, came right out of the collapse of a socio· political economic system. The days that saw the rise of Christianity are clear to us who look back: The old gods had been laughed out of existence; religion was decayed; and since the popu· lar gods had proved silly, untrustworthy, lustful, and too, too human, there was a swing toward atheism and agnosticism. -9- r Economically the days were sad. Gigan- tic selfishness was the mark of the leaders. Caesar waged his Gallic War, not because of any wrongs the tribesmen might have com· mitted, but because he needed to make a great deal of money and to make it fast. He came back to Rome with enough money to buy the supreme power in the state. A small group of plutocrats sat aloft, feasting and luxuriating, on the bent should- ers of the multitudes. Slavery was the uni- versal custom, and from human bod'ies and souls were wrung the comforts and luxuries of the few and the power of the merchant princes of Rome. Only a step above the slave was the laborer. The gulf between the exploiting capitalist and the exploited laborer was growing constantly wider. Labor was cheap. Laboring conditions were horrible. And the few profited by their ability to have others work for them. Political corruption was universal. Men became governors of provinces simply to recoup their fortunes by the oppressive taxes and graft that was permitted them. Office in Rome itself was openly bought and sold. Power was traded for privilege or for the frank bestowal of bribes. The Christian Revolution Beyond its supernatural element, Christi- anity came with the principles that over· turned this corrupt and rotten order. Though Christianity was not essentially -10- political and economic, it was social; and its influence upon government and eco- nomics was tremendous_ Slavery was bound to disappear in the face of the Christian doctrine of human equality and the com- mon sonship of all men in a Heavenly Father. Tyranny could not be endured by men who knew themselves to be sons of the King of Kings, and monarchs realized that over them was a Ruler who would de- mand an exact account of their use of en- trusted power_ Exploitation of the work- ingman could not be permitted by any Chris- tian who even vaguely understood the doc- trine of Christ that rich men are merely stewards administering God's material wealth for the benefit of all His children. Double Aspect Where Christianity developed, democracy was bound to arise. The Guilds, the free cities of Europe, the ' Hanseatic League, the republics of Venice and Genoa, the curbing of princely power, were all inevitable. Humanitarianism came as a logical conse- quence: A new and humane treatment of the sick, orphanages, refuges, an interest in and sympathetic treatment of the poor_ It is important to remember that humani- tarianism, this care for humanity in its weak, sick, bruised members, existed only in countries where Christianity was able to present its ideas_ Respect for man and regard for' his essential dignity was un- known in India, in China, in Mohammedan -11- countries, among pagan people who resisted the infiltration of Christian ideals. Catholicity had and has a double aspect: It regards the individual as supreme, and his salvation and perfection as of prime im· portance; but it has the most insistent reo gard for the individual's social responsibil· ity; he must act and live for the sake of the race too. "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself" is the basis of all Christian political and economic principles. Why Not Complete Catholicity was never, we freely grant, a complete success, for the reason that it was . never given a chance for a complete experi- ment. During the supposedly Catholic days, kings interfered; princes forced their domi- nance upon the Church; monarchs intruded their favorites into the places of ecclesiasti- cal power. The oppressive patronage of the French kings, for example, filling the posts of the Church with their unworthy favorites, was followed by a complete exclusion of the Church from French public life. Catholicity has been forced to carryon its mission handicapped by the betrayal of friends and the massed attacks of enemies-the Moham- medans, who for centuries kept Christian Europe fighting for its life, the bitter wars of the Protestant Revolt, the brilliant at· tacks of modern unbelief and skepticism. If Catholicity arose surrounded by the collapse of a system, Communism had much the same beginning. For Communism came into existence in what future historians will -12- undoubtedly recognize as the blackest days of our supposedly Christian era. The Black Years Those were desperate years from about 1770 to 1918, when the modern era ended and another began its struggle to take form. The rise of the machine was unfortunately paralleled by the rise of the new selfishness and the agnostic contempt for human be· ings. In fact, for one hundred and fifty years, the machine was regarded as much more important than the human body- which materialistic science no longer con- sidered as being the companion of an im- mortal soul. We can look back over those hundred and fifty years with horror. Dickens paints for us a picture so ghastly that we can hardly believe it possible-his starved workmen, his puny children, his women living under unspeakable conditions, working fourteen hours a day, given starvation wages. Ho- garth presents pictures that are revolting. We turn to the slums of any large English city, slums that were spawned by the large factories and warehouses, and then glance at the conditions in our own mill towns of New England, our mines of Pennsylvania, our plantations of the South, and realize how selfishness was exploiting the weak and helpless_ Labor had not a chance until it enforced its demands by bloody strikes. Pitiful wages were the rule. The factory and mining towns were scenes of squalid misery. For the religions were suffering fearfully -13- from their own stupidity. Men suddenly grew to know, as the Romans had grown to know, that the existence of many reli- gions was as ridiculous as the existence of many gods. One could no more talk of religions than one could talk of astronomies or algebras. Either there was one religion and it was true; or there were many reli- gions, contradicting and shouting bad names at one another, and they were false; OT there was one true religion in the midst 01' a mass of half-right, half-wrong, part-trua, part-mad, a-grain-of - truth-in-a - mountain-of- nonsense religions, and it was too much trouble to look for the one that was correct. The religions had destroyed man's intereilt and belief in religion. Scientific Selfishness Beyond this, a dear old gentleman, who had not the faintest idea of the far-reaching consequences of his theory, had proposed a basis for systematic scientific selfishness. Charles Darwin enunciated his theory of the Survival of the Fittest. The theory was simple: Things which deserved to endure would endure; but to find out which things deserved or ' were fit to endure, it was nec- essary to fight it out in a kind of gigantic experiment. This the various forms of ani- mal life had done as the species developed and progressed in Darwinian evolution. Men saw in this theory an excuse for their own selfishness. If the · fit survived, if it was possible to prove fitness only througb battle and strife,JOthen men must battle and -14- strive. So they did. They fought it out in ruthless business competition. Trusts and monopolies grew larger and more unscru· pulous as they crus~ed out their smaller competitors. Capital and labor no longer regarded themselves as partners and asso· ciates in a common cause but as bitter ene- mies who must battle it out for supr.emacy. And the nations of the world, each bent on proving the fitness of its national cultu.re to survive, made the final laboratory ex· periment to test the Darwinian theory of the Survival of the Fittest on the battle· fields of Flanders. Communism Revolts Out of this welter of selfishness, of ex- ploitation of the poor, of political ·corrup· tion and scientific greed, of agnosticism and atheism, came Communism, as a quite ex· plicable revolt. Now it is important to note · that if Com· munism hated the hundred and fifty years of human exploitation and greed and ruth· less competition and labor struggles and growing gangs and crookedness in pOlitics and the spread of imperialistic nations until Europe had gobbled up all the colonies it could assimilate and conquered all the nations that could be tied to its chariot, the protests of Catholicity against these years is no less violent. Indeed, the most characteristic thing about those · hundred and fifty years was the fact that Catholicity as an active force -15- was kept out of world affairs as far as this was humanly possible. Voltaire had at the opening of this era laid down the principle, "Destroy the infamo!ls thing." The influ- ence of that "infamous thing," the Church, was to be destroyed in all the relations that really mattered: The ' Church was to have no place in politics or government; it was to be excluded from the realms of busi- ness and commerce; it was to be denied admission into education; it was to have no voice in the world of recreation or art. In fact, it was to keep its influence inside the sanctuary rail, and from there it was to speak of nothing that could not be found verbatim in the penny catechism. "Out With Christianity!" So the governments of the world informed Catholicity that it was to keep its hands off. They could and would decide what was right and wllat was wrong, especially when - it was a question of seizing new territory or waging war on weaker nations. Christ and His disciples became utterly out of place on Wall Street or the exchanges of the world or at the board meeting of the directors who planned the cutthroat busi- ness wars and the starvation industrial wages that dominated business turned into piracy. The name of . Christ and any of His basic teachings on human rights and responsibilities and dignities and obligations were forbidden mention in the classroom. And, as a great French poet and diplomat said, you might search the literature of -16- t I· f J- fifty years and never suspect that a God had died upon the cross for love of men. When the fitting climax of this exolusion of Christianity and God from human life broke forth in the World War, unbelievers taunted Christianity with its failure. "Why didn't you stop this?" they cried. The answer was pitifully obvious : Christianity had been roughly and ruthlessly barred for over a hundred and fifty years from all that the world considered really important. And at the end the nations reaped the selfish- ness and hatreds they had sown. Never Again So, when Communism rails at the abuses of government and capital during those hor- rible hundred and fifty years, Catholicity is quite in agreement. Karl Marx spoke in repudia tion of the evils; but he spoke no more loudly and vehemently than did Leo XIII and Pius XI. Communism shouted, "Such conditions must never return." And Catholicity, regarding, not merely its own complete exclusion from the affairs of man- kind, but the subjection of men to machines, the many to the few, the exploited mass of mankind to the small group of exploiters, cries with a hope, a prayer, and a prophecy, "Such conditions must not return, and with the help of God and decent men, they shall never be permitted to return." Communist and Catholic agree fervently in their hope of correcting the abuses that created the wide gulf between rich and poor, -17- between ruler and ruled, between the few and the many. They agree, however, in more points than that, though all are in some way . connected with this first common repugnance. Justice In theory at least, Communist and Cath· olic demand the essential rights of all men. By the fact that a man is a man, he has the right to a decent wage, to healthful living quarters, to marriage and a family, to an education, to opportunities for the development of his talents, to wholesome recreation, to those comforts of life which God gave, not to the few, but to all man· kind. Justice is the greatest of virtues, says the Communist. Phrasing it in a familiar negative, the Catholic echoes the age·old truism of moral theology: "There are three crimes that cry to heaven for vengeance; murder, adultery, and th.e defrauding of a laborer of his just wage." It is not the fault of Catholicity itself if during the years adultery and murder have been more fre· quently the subject of sermons than starva· tion wages or an unfair form of taxation which placed the burdens on the few, or racial and class distinctions that kept cer- tain groups tied to low types of labor and living conditions that sapped their physical strength and endangered their Bouls. The Catholic principle has been even clearer than the Communistic. -18- Wealth for All Wealth and property, say both, have their social aspect. There they come to a line of division. The Communist sees only the social aspect. Wealth and property belong to the community, not to the individual. The Catholic sees wealth and property in a double aspect: They belong to the indi- vidual but are also for the sake of the com- munity; they have both aspects, personal and social. Personal property is the assur· ance of liberty and freedom. But where certain types of property controlled by the individual destroys the freedom of others, that property may be held in common. And no man may hold his property in such a way that he excludes from its benefits the rest of the human race. "We demand the solidarity of the human race," says the Communist, no more em- phatically than does the Catholic. In fact, it is only the Catholic, maintaining as he does the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, that sees the members of the human race, not as merely alike in feature and form, in essential rights and privileges, but as united in the physical union with God through Christ and with one another. Roads Separate Thus far Catholicity and Communism have had much in common. At this point they begin to separate. For your true Communist must be an atheist. Karl Marx, the father of Com- -19- munism, was born into an age when agnosti- cism was the fad and atheism was som'3- thing of a fashion_ The scientific swing had not as yet begun. The popular scientists of the day were inclined to discredit such things as souls and felt that they could probably get along rather nicely without God. Since that day souls have become ex- tremely fashionable, until your current scien- tist (even the non-Christian scientist) is likely to declare for a world filled with a world-soul, and perhaps go to the extreme of saying that there is no matter at all in the world, but bnly manifestations of mind or soul. And atheism, after struggling for seventy-five years to find one argument against the existence of God, has been rele- gated to the village atheist and the chap who still reads Paine and Ingersoll. Marx, however, was the victim of his sur- roundings. And his followers, adopting his s logan, "Religion is the opium of the peo- ple," have consistently held that the Com- munistic state must exclude God, drive out religion, and exile Jesus Christ. Too Much Is Lost In that, of course, the Catholic simply cannot follow him. The Catholic cannot look at the plan and order of the world and deny its Planner. He cannot listen to the voice of Christ and then reject a Father in Heaven. He finds the world absolutely pur- poseless unless he sees it, not as the freak accident of an undesigned evolution, but as the workshop and proving ground given by -20- a Creator to His creatures. And he declines to give up his proofs for and belief in the immortality of his personality just because the Communist prefers to believe that for him all ends with the grave and its sad decay. Leaders Because of this fundamental premise, which must be accepted by every real Com- munist, that there is no God and no immor- tality, the Communist sees men's lives as bounded by this earth and men's actions as affecting only the immediate present. The Catholic sees men as destined for an- other life and men's actions as affecting both the immediate present and an eter- nity. Your true Communist follows only the leadership of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. Under their pictures he holds his meetings. Their writings are his gospel. The Catholic moves under the leadership of Jesus Christ. Christ's message, not merely in its reference to an- other world, but in its basic teachings re- garding conduct and life here on this earth, contains the principles on which the Cath- olic bases his conduct. And the Catholic finds in St_ Paul and in the socio-political economic writings of the recent Popes the application of Christ's principles to modern life and times. Who's on Top? The Communist believes that mankind is to be saved by a revolution, political and -21- economic in character. When the political form of government has been modeled on the Russian soviets, when . the economic principles are those laid down by Marx and Engels, the world will be satisfactorily reo made. The Catholic shakes his doubtful head. He too is keen for a revolution. But he completely distrusts revolutions which are merely political and economic. He has seen too many of them come and go with no real effect upon the happiness of the human heart. For it really makes little difference to the great mass of mankind who rules or who is on top if that lPan or party is a despot and tyrant. The Communist sees the wheel swinging around until the present suppressed class, the proletariat, is on top, and the present ruling class, the capitalist, is on the bottom. While this may benefit the lot of the proletariat, it means that a large section of the human race is still oppressed and suppressed. It is noteworthy that the same secret police who, under the czars, made life miserable for the revolu- tionary classes, now, under the revolution- ary classes, make' life miserable for those who op'pose this new rule. Two Revolutions There must be a revolution. On that both agree. The Communist says a political and economic revolution merely. The Catholic says a political and economic revolution brought about by a revolution that is per- sonal and individual. And the personal, indi- -22- vidual revolution is the more important. Without it any other revolution in the world results merely in an exchange of masters and slaves. The old masters become the new slaves; the old slaves become the new masters. But the old hate vibrates between them as it always did, so long as their hearts have not undergone the revolution which Christ demanded when He issued the call to His Great Revolution, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The Communist demands the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Catholic repudiates all dictatorships as an extension and con- tinuance of tyranny. Instead, he asks for worldwide cooperation-of individuals with individuals, of classes with classes, of colors with colors, of nations with nations. Co· operation, not dictatorship, is the answer. Into the Third International the Commun- ist would sweep the whole world. Into the First and Only Supernational, the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, would the Catholic see all men drawn. State-Master or Servanq To the Communist the state is supreme. The state is above the individual, the fam· ily, the Church; and the individual and family (for the Church is excluded) must serve the all-powerful state. In the eyes of the Communist the individual is unim- portant; the state is the supreme consider- ation; the individual lives for the state. Exactly the reverse is the stand taken -23- by the Catholic. The state is not the master but the servant of the individual and the family. The individual is not meant to serve the state; the state was designed by God to serve, protect, and safeguard the indio vidual and the family. The state is not all· powerful. The individual and the family (and certainly the Church) have rights and privileges and powers that cannot be touched by the state. The idea of an all-powerful state making of its members pawns and slaves is utterly repugnant to the Catholic. It is at the heart of Communism. Briefly put, to the Communist the people are the servants of the state; to the Cath- olic the state is the servant of the people. Property for All We have already mentioned the divergent attitudes of Communism and Catholicity on the question of private property. The Com- munist seeks to abolish all private property. The Catholic desires to extend private prop· erty to as many as possible. The Communist rules that no one shall own. The Catholic aspires to seeing everyone ·own. The Com- munist wishes to abolish private property, thus to destroy greed. The Catholic wishes to preserve and extend private property as a protection against slavery. But the Catholic believes it is the duty of the state, just as it protects the indi- vidual against the thief who unlawfully seeks to steal what does not belong to him, to protect the individual against corporate -24- greed and industrial aggression, against starvation wages and unfair competition. The state must safeguard private property for the individual and at the same time watch carefully that private property be not used to hurt any member of society. Class War Finally, the Communist calls for a revolu- tion based on violence and hatred and re- sulting in class war. Class war is of the very core and essence of Communism. Its leaders have insisted that class hatred is among the noblest of 'the virtues. While decrying "imperialistic wars" and using its "League against War and Fascism" as a cloak, while calling upon the workers of the world to resist all wars between nations, Communism has, as its constantly avowed purpose and objective, a worldwide civil war. These same workers of the world, who are to take no part in the wars between nations, are to enlist in a great international war- fare of their class against the bourgeoisie and capitalist society. The Red Army is looked upon as a great weapon waiting for the moment when it can start its class war -as it tri,ed to do in China, in India, recently in South America, in Mexico, in Austria. At the very heart of the whole Com- munist movement is this class warfare based upon violence and hatred of the proletariat directed against the other two classes, How far this is opposed to the Christian principle "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as -25- thyself," it is not difficult to see. Wars of all kinds, civil or imperialistic or interna· tional, are the breeders of countless evils. When the Communist calls for civil war and hatred and violence, he is a conservative of the worst possible type; he wants to keep alive, to conserve, precisely those things which have in times past gone so far to ' hold back and wreck humanity. The radical is a man who goes to the very root and heart of things, as the true Christian must, by endeavoring to build his revolution on the love of men for one another. It is piti- fully simple to conserve and foster hatred. It is a radical departure to ask and agitate for a revolution based on love between mem- bers of the human family. Our Stand In his hatred of the abuses of ruthless capitalism and a socio-political economic system which deliberately excludes God and the principles of Jesus Christ, the Catholic agrees heartily with the Communist. The Catholic recognizes the evils that fill the world. He sees the harm done by human greed and selfishness and oppression. He praises and believes in justice. He wants the good things of the earth to be shared by all. But the Catholic, though he may under- stand and in a way admire the sincere Com- munist, cannot follow him into the hopeless- ness and unreasonableness of denying God. He cannot bear to see men oppressed by the dictatorship' of any man or class, be it -26- a Stalin or the proletariat. He feels that property is the safeguard of liberty and that the abolition of property puts men at the mercy of a slave state. He violently ob· jects to the perversion that makes man serve the state where the state should serve man. He is convinced that the Third Inter· national is not nearly as far·reaching as is the First Supernational, the .Church, with its universal viewpoint and its catholic ideals and attitudes. Nor can he find in Com· munism any ·basis for human solidarity com· parable to the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. Like the Communist he is a revolutionist. But he believes that the revolutions of the past have not succeeded for any long period of time when they were based on hatred, violence, and the suppression of any class or race. He is ·convinced that the only revolution which can bring lasting peace and happiness and security to mankind mu'st take place in the human heart. It cannot be a revolution of hate. It must be a revo· lution of love. Like the Communist, he is a Red. But he is red with the love of Christ for his fellow men, not with the thought that peace can come through the spilling of the blood of political and economic foes. The Communist Is Conservative And in all of this the Communist is far the more conservative. He simply does not believe in his fellow men. He is convinced that men are so greedy that they can be -27- trusted safely only when they have been stripped of all property and of the right to possess it. He believes them so hopelessly inadequate that they cannot rule or govern themselves. So he would install the dictator- ship of a few men controlling the prole- tariat with an iron hand. They, the great mass of the people, do not even have brains enough to vote. So he offers them a totali- tarian state, one party, one line of policy, with only the permission to approve what is being done. Confidence in Humanity The confidence of the Catholic in human- kind is vastly more kindly and humane. The Catholic believes that individuals can be trained to unselfishness. He believes they know enough to manage their own affairs, to run their own stores, and to conduct their own business. He recognizes that the state may often have to exercise a pOlice power to see that criminals, rich and poor, do not act against the best interests of their neigh- bor. But he does not think that men are so hopelessly evil that the state must take all property away from them and reduce them to the status of slaves and dependents. And he is convinced that men can be trained to self-government. They do not need a dictatorship, whether of a man or of a party. They do not need to be herded to the polls to give a nod of approval to the operations of a totalitarian party. They can govern themselves and should govern themselves. -28- Clear Choice The intelligent man, then, has his choice between two revolutions. There are only the two. Communism is tied up hopelessly with a distrust of God and a distrust of man. It rejects God, and with Him all of the spiritual elements in man, as well as man's immortality, . his destiny beyond this brief fiickering through time. It denies man's ability to handle . property or to man· age government. Only the limited leaders of the party can do this. It substitutes the slave state for democracy. It puts its trust in hate, violence, and class warfare. Catholicity is the other revolution-Ca- tholicity which has never had a real chance to show what it can do for the world. This revolution clings to God as the Creator and Father of the race, who gave men a dignity and a destiny. It believes that man's con· duct is so essentially important that its consequences are eternal. It is convinced that man can be trained to cooperation, to the handling' of his own property and gov· ernment. It maintains that the state is his servant and not his master. And to human love, service and coopera- tion it appeals for that revolution which will bring peace and security to the whole of humanity. Beyond these general principles the two revolutions have their detailed application of these principles to life and practice. But applications can never rise above principles. The modern man must decide which of the two revolutions offers him most. -29- CATHOLICITY AND COMMUNISM AGREE: 1. In a repudiation of the selfishness, greed, uncontrolled competition, terrible dis· parity between rich and poor, employer and employed, that marked the past 150 years, when God and Christianity were excluded from all the affairs of life. 2. In demanding the essential rights of man: to living wages, to decent living quar· ters, to marriage and children, to educa· tion and necessary training, to justice be· fore the law, to wholesome recreation, to the truth. 3. In holding justice as one of the essen· tial virtues, and injustice to the workman as one of the most terrible of crimes. 4. In maintaining that the state must safeguard the best interests of its members. 5. In the solidarity of the human race. THEY DISAGREE: Catholicity 1. "Our Father who art in heaven." 2. God made this a purposeful world. 3. This world is a proving ground for another world. 4. Men are immor· tal. Communism 1. There is no God. 2. This is a pur· poseless world. 3. There is no world beyond the grave. 4. Men die wit h their bodily death. -30- 6. Christ, St. Paul, the Popes, are the leaders. 6. Are vol uti 0 n through love and service. 7. Through wid e . 6. Marx, Len i n, Stalin, are the leaders. '6. Are vol uti 0 n through hate and violence. 7. Through cia s s spread coopera· war. tion. 8. Equality of all men in essentials. 9. In the First and o n 1 y Superna· tional. 10. Ownership by as many as possible. 11. Pro per t y has both an individu- al and a social aspect. 12. Property is the safeguard of hu- man freedom. 13. The family and the individual are superior to the state. 14. The state is the servant of the in- dividual. 8. The dictatorship of the proletariat, 9. In the Third In- ternational. 10. No ownership. 11. Pro per t y has only a social as- pect. 12. Property is mere- ly the opportun- ity for greed. 13. The state is su- perior to the in- dividual and the family_ 14. The individual is the servant of the state. 16. A 11 aggressive 16. Civil war of ag- -31- war is wrong. 16. The changes are to be b r 0 ugh t about by changes in the hearts and sou 1 s of men, with . effective changes in gov· ernment and eco· nom i c s fiowing from and safe· guarding these. gression by class against class is essential. 16. The changes are to be b r 0 ugh t about by exter- nal forms of gov- ernment and eco· nomics. -32- Something Really New ON COMMUNISM Rollicking, clever verse combines with vivid, graphic sket ches to show unmistakably wheth e r o r not we can believe it when WE'RE TOLD: RELIGION IN RUSSIA IS FREE! By FATHER DANIEL A. LORD , S. J. Unlike so many other writings on communism, th is pamphlet will invite readers by its unusual and attractive form. It se rves also to convey a very serious message . • ·WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH EUROPE? In this, one of his recent pamphlets, Father Lo rd presenis a ve ry plausible answer to the question, "What's the matter with Europe?" It will be found that .comm un ism is an impor. tant element in this explanation of the mud- dle that is the Europe of today, with its dictato rships, its nationa l hatreds, its seething unrest, its furi o us arming. Each of th e:se pamphlets: Single copy, 10c 25 for $2.25; 50 For $4.00; 100 for $7.00 THE QUEEN'S WORK 3742 W . Pine Boulevard ST. LOUIS, MO. THE QUEEN'S WORK 3742 West Pine Blvd . St. Louis, Mo. Prinud in U. S. A. 767464-001 767464-002 767464-003 767464-004 767464-005 767464-006 767464-007 767464-008 767464-009 767464-010 767464-011 767464-012 767464-013 767464-014 767464-015 767464-016 767464-017 767464-018 767464-019 767464-020 767464-021 767464-022 767464-023 767464-024 767464-025 767464-026 767464-027 767464-028 767464-029 767464-030 767464-031 767464-032 767464-033 767464-034 767464-035 767464-036