THE CENTRAL QUESTION POSED BY THIS ESSAY

As is well known, it is possible to have a Communist regime in which the Church is allowed to continue functioning, but with only a minimum amount of freedom.  An example of such a situation is provided by Poland.

This raises a question. Is it legitimate for a Catholic in the West to view as a morally acceptable possibility the imposition of such a Communist regime in his own nation?

There is no way of avoiding this question. It is, on the one hand, certainly possible that for political reasons a Commu­nist regime may grant this marginal freedom to the Church for a considerable period of time as in the case of Poland. It is also possible, on the other hand, that the nations of the West may be forced to choose in the not‑too‑distant future between the lesser of two evils: nuclear warfare and Communist domination.

If it is licit for the Church to accept a partial liberty under Communist domination, perhaps the lesser of the two evils may be to permit the victory of Marxism to avoid the hecatomb of atomic war. But if this coexistence represents a grave risk of complete or almost complete extirpation of the faith, the case is different. Then, to accept the struggle against Marxism would be the lesser evil, for the loss of the faith is a greater evil than the destruction of everything that an atomic war could touch.

How imminent, how palpable this question is! Consider the photograph on the front cover of this magazine. It shows a Communist demonstration in front of the Cathedral in Milan which occurred during the recent Italian elections.

This scene, situated in the nation which is the very seat of the Church, brings the Church and Communism into a tragic proximity. Who can fail to grasp the direction and import of such a scene?

Yet there is only one solution to the central question we have raised, and it is argued convincingly by Plinio Correa de Oliveira in his essay, "The Church and the Communist State, the Impossible Coexistence."