THIS – at Америка – speaks for itself.
Dean Dettloff. Who? HERE
I note in particular another of his offerings: “Christian Socialism: The Fusion of Faith and Revolution”.
Here’s a quote from his piece:
Communist political movements the world over have been full of unexpected characters, strange developments and more complicated motivations than a desire to undo the church; and even through the challenges of the 20th century, Catholics and communists have found natural reasons to offer one another a sign of peace.
Unexpected characters, indeed? Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong-un, Ceausescu. Given the essence of Communism, they weren’t unexpected at all. They were inevitable. For Socialism and Communism to triumph, a lot of people have to die. But, hey! What do a few eggs matter, after all, if you are making an omelette?
BTW… his piece at Америка is sure not going to help the cause of Dorothy Day.
Here’s a screen shot of Detloff’s Twitter page. I hope you can make out the banner.
Who can forget that iconic moment of Francis receiving the Hammer and Sickle cross. HERE
I am reminded of one of Francis’s predecessors, Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno.
That We, in keeping with Our fatherly solicitude, may answer their petitions, We make this pronouncement: Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.”
[…]
[Socialism] is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.
The editor of Америка wrote an accompanying piece in which he explains why they published something pro-Communist. In the first paragraph, he vaunts the denunciation of Sen. McCarthy in the 1950’s. Problem: McCarthy was more right than he was wrong about the infiltration of the US government by Communist agents. HERE The editor does, however, say:
For what it’s worth, my general view of economics begins with the fact that markets, for all their downsides, are the greatest force for economic empowerment that the world has ever seen.
He didn’t write “free markets”, but I think that may be what he meant. He goes on to praise his choice to publish a defense Arthur Brooks. In any event, his argument comes down to something like: the piece on Communism is interesting and so we published it.
That’s the criteria for publication there? That it’s interesting? There are a lot of things that are interesting, but are downright evil. Communism is interesting partly because at least 100 million people were slain under that form of government. That’s pretty interesting, in an obscene way.
I find it obscenely interesting that a theoretically Catholic journal should publish something favorable to Communism. No… correction. It’s a Jesuit journal.
The editor, again.
Accordingly, we publish something in almost every issue with which I personally disagree. I hope we publish something you disagree with, too. If not, we are not doing our job.
So, it’s their aim – their “job” – to be provocateurs, agitators.
What’s next for Америка Porn merchants? Porn is interesting, after all, and doubly useful because it’s provocative! They’ve already gone down that road by not correcting their highly visible golden boy homosexualist activist.
UPDATE:
From Damian.
Exclusive sneak preview of the next issue of @americamag pic.twitter.com/xA0Qe5F1pW
— Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) July 24, 2019
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Quoth my favorite Jedi, Yoda, “Strong is the stupid in this one…”
What would be the reason for Jesuits and other Communists not to come out of hiding. This is their hour, this is their time. It’s all been right there, hidden in plain sight. After all, didn’t one of the pope’s closest advisers say that at this time the Communists were the best example of Christianity?
Haven’t the Chinese Catholics been suffering immensely under the Chinese government ever since they were sold out by Rome? We see churches and shrines being destroyed, children forbidden to enter churches, and the persecution of the Catholic faithful and clergy.
Rome did this, but Rome does not care.
There’s a familiar saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.'”
Most of my life, I’ve seen, read or heard people justifying communism or socialism over and over, and it amazes me how often they return to the same approach. They must think people are stupid, or else they are quite stupid themselves, or else they are liars. I don’t know what other option to choose — I’d like to have a more charitable interpretation, help me!
But here’s what I mean. This author writes about the glories of the Cuban revolution, and manages not to utter the words, “Che Guevara”? To talk about the Communist Party USA, and never mention it’s shabby, vile history of toadying to the Kremlin, even to Stalin? It’s one thing to point out the deficiencies of free market economics and self-government; I’ll be happy to do so if you wish. But to try to marry Christianity to communism? How about the error of viewing human life primarily through the lens of economics? This is something you can legitimately criticize free marketeers and some conservatives and libertarians for; but isn’t this precisely what Marx did? In any case, it is clearly what this author in America magazine falls prey to.
All these years later, and the same shopworn propaganda.
What next, “The Catholic Case for Mortal Sin”? Or “Grave Intrinsic Evil: Not as Grave, Intrinsic, or as Evil as You Thought”?
Straightforward Liberation Theology, Americanism, Modernism, and Relativism.
These things should have no place whatsoever at the table, and yet the Pope’s laissez-faire attitude in such matters seems, by default, to encourage such blatantly heterodox opinionists to publish them. Though I suppose that there must also to a degree be some Trump Derangement Syndrome at play as well.
I have seen on foot pilgrimage this year that the present tendency of the Church, in southern Europe anyway, is towards more traditional and even Latinate Liturgy of the Mass, so I’m a little at a loss as to why such men seem to believe so firmly that the future of the Church might lie in the failed concepts of the 1970s.
Jesuit-ish Agitprop indeed!
It seems Quadragesimo Anno is an encyclical that should be on my list to read in full. Since the part Father quoted makes assertions, I looked up the explanation of those assertions to add. I believe I have excerpted from it for brevity appropriately to avoid changing the intended meaning:
At the same time, don’t miss that Pope Pius XI also warns against unbridled capitalism, [Which exists NOWHERE… including wild Hong Kong.] and that from our excess, “the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church constantly declare in the most explicit language that the rich are bound by a very grave precept to practice almsgiving, beneficence, and munificence.”
For crying out loud! It has not been that long since Pope St John Paul the Great railed against the evils of Communism and helped to destroy Communism in Europe! I can see some “Catholics” flirting with socialism, but this?!
The provocative article always push the Overton Window in one direction. We never see an article about the virtues of the Extraordinary Form, Natural Family Planning, celibate living for those with Same-Sex Attraction, or the Second Amendment.
THAT would be real diversity of thought, unlike the soft-edged relativism of upper-class social elites found in most Jesuit publications.
Coming up in Amerikka Magazine:
The Catholic Case for Nazism
The Catholic Case for the Rwandan Genocide
The Catholic Case for White Supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan
The Catholic Case for Nero
The Catholic Case for Pedophilia, Pederasty and other Differently Ordered Sexual Orientations
[We might disagree with some of those, but they would be interesting!]
Worth sharing.
https://churchpop.com/2016/11/27/5-reasons-the-church-condemns-communism-as-intrinsically-wrong/
Sister Josaphata (Michaelina) Hordashevska
Father Leonid Feodorov
Father Mykola Konrad
Volodymyr Pryima
Father Andrii Ischak
Father Severian Baranyk
Father Yakym Senkivskyi
Father Zenovii Kovalyk
Father Emilian Kovch
Sister Tarsykia Matskiv
Father Vitalii Bairak
Father Roman Lysko
Bishop Hryhorii Khomyshyn
Bishop Theodore Romzha
Bishop Josaphat Kotsylovsky
Bishop Mykyta Budka
Bishop Hryhorii Lakota
Archimandrite Klymentii Sheptytsky
Father Mykola Tsehelskyi
Father Ivan Ziatyk
Sister Olympia Olha Bida
Sister Lavrentia Herasymiv
Fahter Petro Verhun
Father Oleksii Zarytskyi
Bishop Mykola Charnetskyi
Bishop Semeon Lukach
Bishop Ivan Sleziuk
Bishop Vasyl Velychkovsky
Father Jerzy Popieluszko
While there are millions of others known and unknown, enough said.
Quoting Father Z’s response to my prior post:
“At the same time, don’t miss that Pope Pius XI also warns against unbridled capitalism, [Which exists NOWHERE… including wild Hong Kong.]
True. I should have tried to be more precise with respect to Pope Pius XI’s discussion of some of the economic problems that he was observing in western nations.
Quoting Father Martin Fox:
“How about the error of viewing human life primarily through the lens of economics?”
Unfortunately, your post had not yet showed up when I wrote mine. I tried to find a simple way to summarize Pope Pius XI’s criticisms of socialism, but settled for quoting some of the key points.
I think what you said, however, is a pretty solid summary.
This “Communists, and sure, why not, Catholics Together” article deserves some sort of award for errant nonsense.
“By affirming the goodness that drives so many communists then and now, Day aimed to soften the perceptions of Catholics who were more comfortable with villainous caricatures of the communists of their era than with more challenging depictions of them as laborers for peace and economic justice.”
Ah yes, Communism will “challenge” us out of our lazy caricatures and ccomfort zones. The massive death toll of Communist governments and terrorist groups, along with winning the Cold War was a sufficient challenge. While we’re at it, Communism trashes the environment. Nice try.
“Communist political movements the world over have been full of unexpected characters, strange developments and more complicated motivations than a desire to undo the church…”
Please, do tell.
“…and even through the challenges of the 20th century, Catholics and communists have found natural reasons to offer one another a sign of peace.”
Again, nice try.
“The Communist Party USA has published essays affirming the connections between Christianity and communism…”
All is well, nothing to see here, we have the solemn affirmations of the Communist Party, return to your homes.
“For my part, I have talked more about Karl Rahner, S.J., St. Óscar Romero and liberation theology at May Day celebrations and communist meetings than at my own Catholic parish.”
Good, but let’s make more of an effort to keep “your part” out of the parish. An unhealthy obsession with economics is one thing, saving souls is quite another.
“In other words, though some communists would undoubtedly prefer a world without Christianity, communism is not simply a program for destroying the church.”
But wait, besides destroying the Church there’s more!
“But communists are not the only ones who have to answer for creating human suffering.”
Let the Struggle Session begin.
(the Airing of Grievances follows: Amazon warehouses, Colonialism, the Rich wasting money on space travel etc. Class Warfare is the Only Solution).
“…private property is always subordinate to the common good.”
Yeah, buddy, we got the idea from Stalin and the Holodomor, and Mao and the Great Leap Forward.
“Instead, they [Marx and Engels] write that property should be transformed.”
Well now, that sounds harmless…
“It is when the communists are dangerous that they are good.”
Now that’s just perverted. As Fulton Sheen said, “Old Errors, New Labels.”
This “intellectual” made the case again for the Bible, numerous encyclicals, and the 1st and 2nd Amendments.
The thing is, it’s *not* interesting. First, it doesn’t engage or address the theological and intellectual incompatibilities between Communism and the Christian understanding of the human person. Second, it doesn’t acknowledge how Communist governments viewed and dealt with the Church, recognizing that same incompatibility. It is striking that a publication associated with the religious order of Father Walter Ciszek, whom the Soviets tortured, or Father Robert A. Graham, who ran counterintelligence for the Vatican while the Stasi and the KGB blackmailed and suborned priests, would publish an article that gave not even a nod to the necessity of their work. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the article doesn’t seriously engage with what Communist governments did to human beings, Catholics or not. When I studied Soviet politics in the mid-1980s, the big debate was whether there was continuity or discontinuity between Lenin or Stalin. Read Orlando Figes’s “The Whisperers,” and you realize almost immediately that the debate was a big canard, a question only of degree. In the immortal words of Jim Malone, this author brought a knife to a gunfight. Anybody who reads the piece ought to read Nguyen Van Thuan’s “Testimony to Hope” as an intellectual palate cleanser or, better yet, penance.
Great comments. Here is Acton Institute chiming in:
“On Tuesday, America magazine published an apology for Communism that would have been embarrassing in Gorbachev-era Pravda.”
https://blog.acton.org/archives/110553-there-is-no-catholic-case-communism.html
A few Communism/Socialism jokes:
A Communist is haranguing a crowd one afternoon on a street corner: “Come the revolution, everyone will eat strawberries and cream!” A man yells back, “I don’t like strawberries and cream!” The speaker thunders, “Come the revolution, you will like strawberries and cream!”
Three workers are arrested and thrown in Glorious People’s Prison. They ask each other what they’re in for. The first man says: “I was always ten minutes late to work, so I was accused of sabotage.” The second man says: “I was always ten minutes early to work, so I was accused of espionage.” The third man says: “I always got to work on time, so I was accused of having a capitalist watch.”
What is the difference between Capitalism and Communism?
It’s the order of events:
In Capitalism the dad goes missing and then kids report,
while in Communism kids report then dad goes missing.
Why are some young people turning to socialism and communism?
So they can seize the memes of production.
One more, from Reagan:
“How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”