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Thoughts on An Encyclical
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2024
Extract
“Pope Denounces Communism” screamed the headlines. And of course there were the usual impertinent attempts to exploit the fact in class-interests. But the text of Divini Redemptoris proved a dangerous weapon for those concerned to preserve the social-economic status quo and to hinder the logical development of the existing industrialcapitalist society into a socialistic one. As said La Libre Belgique:
If atheistic communism is condemned, so too are all those evil “Christians” who live on the miseries of others, the selfish or blind “conservatives” who have failed to foresee that the indignation of the proletariat would impel them to rebellion, the evil rich who have so long been the object of the Saviour’s curses. . . . The vigour of the Pope’s words to them has astounded and disconcerted the more timid. But there are very few who have understood the love that lies hidden in that anger. This Encyclical is a model of righteous indignation at the service of charity, truly befitting a Father who longs for the salvation of his children.
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- Copyright © 1937 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 The Politics of Industrialism, Blackfriars, February, 1934.
2 The “Russian experiment” must not be allowed to cloud our vision of essential Marxism. In Russia Lenin was faced with a historical situation such as Marx had never envisaged: a mainly non-industrialized and hence a non-proletarianized society. Hence in Russia, to the scandal of the Menshevik Marxists, we have seen something like an inversion of Marxism in the determination of economics by politics and of politics by something approaching a mystique (which to Marx was of all things most abhorrent). Indeed, it would seem that in U.S.S.R. materialistic determinism has been abandoned in all but name, and that something aproaching to a genuine revolution has been achieved not because of darx but in spite of him. But this is not to be expected in the industrialized West. On this see the important and penetrating article of N. Berdyaev, The Metamorphosis of Marxism, in Blackfriars, February, 1934-
3 One suspects that even Marx would have been shocked to see “bourgeois interests” combining to hinder the propagation of his race!
4 Cf. The Christian Revolution, Blackfriars. February, 1934.
5 Since the above was written come reports of Mgr. Jackman's splendid address to the S.V.P. (Catholic Times and Universe, 16th April, 1937) in which he describes the Communist “revolution” as no revolution at all, “a quiet transfer, a change of business, Hell under new management”. May we express the hope that this address will be published in pamphlet form and scattered broadcast?