Posted on 07/23/2019 4:57:54 PM PDT by NRx
“It is when the Communists are good that they are dangerous.”
That is how Dorothy Day begins an article in America, published just before the launch of the Catholic Worker on May Day in 1933. In contrast to the reactions of many Catholics of the time, Day painted a sympathetic, if critical view of the communists she encountered in Depression-era New York City. Her deep personalism allowed her to see the human stories through the ideological struggle; and yet she concluded that Catholicism and communism were not only incompatible, but mutual threats. A whole Cold War has passed since her reflection, and a few clarifying notes are now worthwhile.
Communists are attracted to communism by their goodness, Day argued, that unerasable quality of the good that can be found within and outside the church alike, woven into our very nature. It might have been an easier thing to say back in 1933, when American communists were well known to the general public for putting their lives on the line to support striking workers, but it was also the kind of thing that could land you in a lot of trouble, not least in the Catholic Church.
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. Most people who join communist parties and movements, Day rightly noted, are motivated not by some deep hatred toward God or frothing anti-theism, but by an aspiration for a world liberated from a political economy that demands vast exploitation of the many for the comfort of a few.
(Excerpt) Read more at americamagazine.org ...
Consider the source. What else would you expect?
Ahh yes, the Jesuits again
Time again to suppress them.
I’m sure the Catholic Poles would have a thing or two to say about the Commies.
I can understand how, maybe a hundred years ago, some idealistic and high-minded individuals might have embraced Communism. It was a rough world (it still is) and Communism seemed a way out. It hadn’t been tried, though. Now it has been tried. And now, since it has been tried, and after Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims, and all the other horrid tyrannies Communism has produced, after the mountains of murdered corpses, after the abject failure of Communist “ideals” in every way, I have to say that anyone who embraces Communism has some serious intellectual, moral, and maybe even mental issues — even if he happens to wear a clerical collar and to have an S.J. after his name. (Maybe the latter isn’t a surprise.)
This article is odd coming from a member of a church whose sainted Pope John Paul II had a role in pulling the whole mess down in Europe.
Well, this guy’s idea of history is to project nobleness , where none exists
Little Black Book of Communism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
Catholicism is against state ownership of property and other govt atrocities. See the encyclical “ Rerum novarum” of 1891, by Pope Leo XIII.
Oh gosh, this makes about the same sense as “the Communist Case for Christianity” ...or
“The Ohio State Case for the Michigan Wolverines” or
“The United Airlines Case for Riding Amtrack” or
“The Vegetarian Case for Eating Beef Liver.”
Why are academics so often idiots?
Bump
The author is “investigating Christian technologies of domination....”
And he’s planning to get a PhD out of this!!
Sheeesh! Does this mean the Marxists are now taking over the STEM wing of the universities too?
....Or rather do serious house cleaning.
Until a certain Pope Francis came along.
Amen. This Catholic of part Polish heritage thanks you.
I think you’re right!
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