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Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Church and communist state IntraText CT - Text |
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7 There is a collateral but tragic effect of the silence of the Church about the principle of private property. By not speaking out, She would be consenting to the progressive spread of misery which would flow from the replacement of private property by collective ownership. ‑ Even in a State which is not completely collectivized, it is an obligation of the Church to make the whole truth shine before the eyes of all. ‑ Even though the sense of property be impossible to extirpate in certain regions of Europe because it is so deeply rooted, the Church cannot maintain silence about the right of property without prejudice to the moral formation of the faithful. ‑ The institution of private property must exist because it belongs to the very natural order of things. Accordingly, even if the proprietors were to renounce their rights of property under the pressure of a Communist state, the Church would not be able to accept a peaceful coexistence with that state. ‑ Nor could the Church accept a Communist regime in a passing way, hoping that it would collapse from its own corruption or attenuate itself. ‑ The diplomatic relations of the Holy See with the Communist countries are on a different plane from the matter considered in this study. The traditional official and semi‑official teaching of the Vatican affirms the impossibility of any ideological truce, of any peaceful coexistence between the Church and Communism. There is no lack of declarations from Communist sources to the same effect. ‑ Finally, the Church could not accept coexistence with a Communist state as a pious fraud ("pia fraus"). It would be naive to think that the Communist would not immediately become aware of violations of the pact.
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