4.     There Is No Way    to Avoid This Problem

The usefulness of such an investigation may per­haps appear questionable to some hasty spirits, who will try to avoid this complex problem by means of preliminary allegations which seem to us altogether questionable.

To illustrate this point, we present some of these allegations now, followed, in each case, by the an­swers that can be made to them:

a) It is evident that relative religious tolerance is merely a Communist maneuver and, therefore, the prospect Of a "modus vivendi" between the Church and a Communist regime cannot be taken seriously. In response to this we may answer that nothing prevents us from supposing that manifesta­tions in many different forms of certain internal tensions may make it necessary for some Communist governments to adopt a more relaxed attitude in religious matters. This relaxation may perhaps have a certain durability and consistency, thereby open­ing up new prospects for the Church.

b) Any agreement with people who, like the Communists, deny God and morality, offers no guarantee of being fulfilled. Thus, even though one admits the Communists to be really disposed today to tolerate religion up to a certain point, one still knows that tomorrow, if it suits them, they will un­leash against it the most brutal and complete per­secution. We recognize this to be so in principle. We also recognize, however, that the Communist State may not take such an action for a time because of political reasons. The religious tolerance of the Communist State is certainly not based on respect for promises, but on the essentially political interest of preventing or reducing internal difficulties. Since this is so, an attitude of relative religious tolerance can endure as long as those difficulties continue. Moreover, it is conceivable that it could eventually last for no short time. Therefore the Communist authority might possibly fulfill for a long time the conditions of an accord proposed to some religion by it, doing this not for considerations of honor but out of political interest.

c) This study will be of no use to the peoples behind the iron Curtain, since it will not be able to circulate freely among them. in addition, it is of no interest to the peoples on this side of the Iron Cur­tain. For them the problem of the legitimacy of a possible coexistence of the Church with the Com­munist regime is not posed, since that regime does not exist in the non‑Communist Occidental nations. The problem which interests the Occidental peoples is not how one can coexist with such a regime, but what can be done to prevent its being implanted. Consequently, this study does not interest anyone, It is not true that this study cannot come to the knowledge of the peoples on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The fact is, it has. The weekly Kierunki of Warsaw, edited by the association "Pax," an in­fluential "Catholic" Polish movement of the extreme left, published, March 1, 1964, on its first page and with great emphasis, an "Open Letter to Dr. Plinio Correa de Oliveira," which was an extensive and indignant protest against this essay by Mr. Zbigniew Czajkowski, an outstanding member of the "Pax" movement. Moreover, we have reason to see an answer to the present study in an article published in the weekly Wiez by authors Mr. Tadeuz Mazowie­cky, senior editor of that review and representative in the Polish Diet of the Catholic group Znak, and Mr. A. Wielowieyski, his collaborator. ("Otwarcie na Wschod," Wiez, Nos. 11‑12, Nov.‑Dec. 1963). If it was necessary to refute our article, it is because it has in some way penetratedthe Iron Curtain and has had reprecussions in areas under Communist domi­nation. Now, to answer the assertion above about the interest this essay has for Occidental peoples, we say that really, it is better to prevent an evil than to remedy it. Furthermore, it may well happen that an Occidental nation, or several Occidental nations at the same time, could be forced to choose between two evils, that is, the acceptation of a Communist regime or modern warfare with all of its horrors, in­ternal and external, conventional and thermo‑nuclear. In such an event, it would be necessary to choose the lesser evil. And the problem will inevitably arise; if the Church can accept coexistence with a Commu­nist government and regime, perhaps the lesser evil consists in avoiding the hecatomb of war, admitting the victory of Marxism as a "fait accompli." Only if coexistence is considered to be impossible and the implantation of Communism to represent a grave risk of complete or almost complete extirpation of the faith in a certain people, only then would the acceptance of the struggle be the lesser evil. For the loss of the faith is a greater evil than the destruction of everything that an atomic war can touch.

As  is evident, all of these preliminary allegations tending to avoid the study of the question under consideration are inconsistent. The problem of the legitimacy of coexistence between the Communist regime and the Church must be considered head‑on and can be resolved satisfactorily for all Catholics only by analyzing it in all of the profundity of its doctrinal aspects.