6. At first sight, it may seem that certain ges­tures of "detente" of the late lamented Pope John XXIII in relation to Soviet Russia are intended to guide the spirit in a sense different from the con­clusions of this work.

One must think quite the contrary.

These said gestures of John XXIII are restricted entirely to the field of international relations.

As far as the plane in which we place this study is concerned, the Pontiff himself, reaffirming in the Encyclical "Mater et Magistra" the condemnations fulminated by his predecessors against Communism, made it quite clear that there can be no demobilization of Catholics in the face of this error which the pontifical documents repudiate with supreme rigor.

And, in the same sense, there is, among others, this expressive pronouncement by Pope Paul VI: "Do not believe, moreover, that this pastoral solici­tude, today assumed by the Church as a primordial program absorbing her attention and polarizing her concerns, signifies a modification of the judgment expressed about the errors disseminated in our so­ciety, and already condemned by the Church, as, for example, atheistic materialism. Trying to apply salutory and urgent remedies to a contagious and mortal disease does not mean changing one's opin­ion in respect to this disease, but on the contrary, it means trying to combat it not only in theory but practically; it signifies that after the diagnosis, one wishes to apply therapeutics, that is, after the doc­trinal condemnation, to apply a salutary charity." (Address of September 6, 1963 to the participants of the 13th Italian Week of Pastoral Adaptation, of Orvieto ‑ AAS, Vol. LV, p. 752).

The Osservatore Romano, semiofficial organ of the Vatican, has repeatedly taken an analogous posi­tion in the course of the present pontificate. One may read, for example, in the issue of March 20, 1964 of the French edition the following: "Leaving aside the more or less fictitious distinctions, it is certain that no Catholic can collaborate, directly or indirectly, with the Communists, for the ideological incompatibility between religion and materialism (dialectical and historical) corresponds to an in­compatibility of methods and ends, a practical incompatibility, that is, a moral one." (Article "Le Rapport Ilitchev," by F.A.). And there appears in another article in the same issue: “For Catholicism and Communism to be reconciled, it would be necessary for Communism to cease to be Commu­nism.” Now even in the multiple aspects of its dialec­tics, Communism concedes nothing in respect to its political ends and its doctrinal intransigence. And thus Communism, by its materialistic conception of Histoi:y, its negation of the rights of the person, its abolition of freedom, its State despotism, and even its unhappy economic experience, is placed in opposition to the spiritual and personalist concep­tion of society as it proceeds from the social doc­trine of Catholicism ( ... )." (Article "A propos de solution de remplacement").

Still in the same sense, it is appropriate to men­tion a collective Letter of the Venerable Italian Episcopate against atheistic Communism, dated November 1, 1963.

      Furthermore, from Communist sources also there has been no lack of affirmations about the im­possibility of an ideological truce or of a peaceful coexistence between the Church and Communism: "Those who propose the idea of peaceful coexistence in matters of ideology fall, in fact, into the anti-­Communist position." (Khrushchev, cf. telegram of March 11, 1963 of the AFP and ANSA in 0 Estado de Sao Paulo of March 12, 1963). "My impression is that never, in any field whatsoever, ( ... ) will it be possible to reach a coexistence of Communism with other ideologies and therefore with religion." (Adju­bei, cf. telegram of March 15, 1963 of the ANSA, UPI, and DPA in 0 Estado de Sao Paulo of March 16, 1963). "There is no conciliation possible between Catholicism and Marxism." (Palmiro Tagliatti, cf telegram of March 21, 1963 of the AFP in 0 Estado de Sao Paulo of March 22, 1963). "A peaceful co­existence of the Communist and bourgeois ideas constitutes a betrayal of the working class ( ... ). There has never been any peaceful coexistence of ideologies; it has never existed, nor will it ever exist. " (Leonid Ilitchev, Secretary of the Central Commis­sion and President of the Ideological Commission of the CPSU, cf. telegram of June 18, 1963 of the AFP, ANSA, AP, DPA, and UPI, in  O Estado de Sao Paulo of June 19, 1963). "The Soviets reject the accusa­tion that Moscow applies the principle of peaceful coexistence to the class struggle, and they say that they do not admit it in the ideological plane either." (Open letter of CC of the CPSU, cf. telegram of the agencies cited, of July 15, 1963, in O Estado de Sao Paulo of July 17, 1963).

In view of this, it is quite evident that the mili­tant Church has not renounced, and could not re­nounce, the essential freedom to fight against her terrible adversary.