1. The Facts

1. For a long time, the attitude of Communist governments, not only toward the Catholic Church but toward all other religions as well, has been pain­fully clear and consistent.

a) According to Marxist doctrine, every religion is a myth which has as a consequence the "aliena­tion"*1 of man to an imaginary superior being, that is to say, God. The oppressing classes take ad­vantage of this "alienation" to maintain their domi­nation of the proletariat. Indeed, the hope of a fu­ture life, promised to uncomplaining laborers as a reward for their patience, works on them like an opiate so that they may not rebel against the hard living conditions imposed upon them by capitalistic society.

b) Thus, the religious myth is utterly false and harmful to man. Neither does God exist, nor is there any life hereafter. The sole reality is matter in a state of continuous evolution. This evolution has as its specific purpose the "disalienating" of man from any subjection to real or imaginary masters, and the free course of this evolution is the supreme good of humanity.

c) This evolution encounters a serious hindrance in every religious myth. As a result, the Communist State, which through the dictatorship of the prole­tariat should open the way toward the evolutionary "disalienation" of the masses, has the duty of exter­minating radically all forms of religion, and to achieve this purpose, in the regions under its author­ity, it should:

‑ in the long or short run, according to the mal­leability of the population, close all churches, do away with all clergy, forbid all worship, profession of faith, and apostolate;

‑ for as long as it is not entirely able to achieve this result, to maintain with regard to all forms of worship which have not yet been suppressed, an attitude of odious tolerance, of multiform spying and of continuous restriction of their activities;

‑ to infiltrate Communists into subsisting ec­clesiastical hierarchies, for the purpose of under­handedly transforming religion into a vehicle of Communism;

‑ to promote the "atheization" of the masses through all the means available to the State and the Communist Party.

From the time the Communist dictatorship took power in Russia until the time (roughly) that the country was invaded by Nazi armies, the conduct of the Soviet Government with regard to the diverse religions was governed by these principles. This was the first stage of the Soviet action.

Throughout the whole of this first stage, Com­munist propaganda boasted to the world that it in­tended to do away with all religions, and made it perfectly clear that, even when it tolerated some of them, this was done only to ensure their more efficient destruction thereafter.

2. In view of this Communist procedure, the line of conduct that Catholics should follow was likewise simple and clear‑cut.

Persecuted as a result of the deep‑seated and absolute incompatibility between its doctrine and the Communist ideology, the Church had no other resort than to react equally radically, using all licit means.

The "relations" between Communist Govern­ments and the Church could consist only of an out and out, life and death struggle. Aware of this, Cath­olic opinion in every non‑Communist country rose as a great phalanx, ready to accept everything, even martyrdom, in order to avoid the implantation of Communism. And in those countries where Com­munism had been established, Catholics organized themselves with great strength of soul in order to live in a state of heroic undergroundness like the early Christians.

3. From a certain time on, the attitude of some Communist Governments with regard to religious matters seems to have taken on fresh nuances.

In fact, while the attitude of the Communist governments toward religion continues to be in­exorably the same in some Communist‑dominated countries, such as, for instance, China, this attitude seems to be undergoing a gradual change in other Communist‑dominated countries, such as Yugoslavia, Poland, and more recently Russia.

Thus, in these latter Communist‑dominated countries (as announced by their respective propa­ganda agencies), a governmental attitude of intol­erance, with respect to some religions, was replaced by a tolerance, which although initially malevolent, later became, if not benevolent at least indifferent. And the former regime of aggressive coexistence tends more and more to be replaced by one of peace­ful coexistence.

In other words, the Russian, Polish, and Yugo­slav governments still maintain their complete adher­ence to Marxism‑Leninism, which continues to be the only doctrine taught and accepted officially by them. However, now they are ‑ to a greater or lesser degree according to the country ‑ permitting a greater freedom of worship, and allowing a treat­ment devoid of violence and, in certain respects, an almost correct attitude toward the religion or reli­gions which have considerable importance in their respective countries.

In Russia, as is well known, the religion having the greatest number of adherents is the Greek ­schismatic church currently known as the Ortho­dox Church. In Poland, the dominant religion is Catholicism, with a majority of the Catholics follow­ing the Latin Rite, while in Yugoslavia, both churches are important.

As a result of this, there begins to appear for the Catholic Church in certain countries behind the Iron Curtain a "tenuous" freedom which consists in the possibility ‑ sometimes greater and sometimes lesser ‑ of distributing the Sacraments and of preaching the Gospel to people who until now had been entirely deprived of religious assistance. We say "tenuous," for in spite of everything, the Church continues to be attacked quite openly by official ideological propaganda and to be permanently spied upon by the police, so that She can do nothing or almost nothing more than carry out the functions of worship and some catechesis. In Poland, besides this, the Church is grudgingly allowed to maintain courses for the formation of priests and to engage in a few social works.