7. Coexistence could be accepted as a pious fraud, that is, if the Church wished to accept co­existence with some Communist regime, She could do so with the concealed idea of cheating as much as possible on the pact established with it.

In considering the hypothesis of an explicit pact, one must answer that no one is permitted to con­tract to do something illicit. Thus, if the acceptance of the conditions we have been talking about is illi­cit, a pact of which they formed a part could not be made.

In respect to the hypothesis of an implicit pact, it should be said ‑ to consider only one aspect of it ‑ that it is naive to imagine that the Communist authorities, constituted as eminently a police organization and served by the powerful resources of modern technology, would not become immediately aware of systematic violation of  such a pact.