Communism cannot wither Her

The ACN conference addressed post-marxist Catholicism. Cecilia Bromley-Martin reports
TIE LEGACY OF communism has left untold damage on the Catholic Church throughout the world. Believers often lost their freedom, their sacred property, their faith their lives. Now communism has all but collapsed. The Berlin Wall has been torn down, Russia has been divided into nation states, Cuba has a burgeoning free-market economy, Menghistu has been deposed in Ethiopia. So what effect has this had on the Universal Church?
Last month, Aid to the Church in Need investigated this question at a fate-day congress in Germany, "The Consequences of Communism Faith and Church in Russia, China, Ethiopia and Cuba".
Many of the speakers who attended are well-known figures, unpopular with their governments, and they risked a great deal by speaking publically about the Church's situation in their country. Several requested anonymity for fear of reprisals against the Church and themselves, while one priest working in Beijing was unable to attend after authorites hinted that if he did so he would not he permitted to return to China.
He did, however, somehow get his text to Germany. In it he confronted the problems between the official state-run "Patriotic Association of Chinese Catholics", and the Underground Church which has retained its loyalty to the Pope and Rome.
Although both are branches of the same Church, there is a history of confrontation between the two. The priest lamented their "lack of collaboration" and their "reciprocal condemnations", stressing that today "our task in all our dealings with the Church in China must unequivocally he the unity of the Church."
Catholics in China have suffered oppression, imprisonment and death. But the Cultural Revolution has ended and religion is no longer the "opium of the people"; it is acceptable to be Christian, although complete religious freedom has not yet been achieved. Men are again at liberty to study for the priesthood, and in 1986, the first priestly ordinations in 30 years were held. But with two generations dividing the old and young priests, tension between the groups can be acute.
The country's seminaries and novice houses are full, but many young seminarians in the Underground Church live more or less in hiding and suffer a terrible lack of resources which makes their lives yet tougher.
Though they may largely be free to worship now, many young Catholics have grown up utterly ignorant about their family faith, having been subjected to an intensive atheist upbringing at school with parents who "scarcely dared to speak to their children about religion any more or have their children baptised."
The lack of churches in such a vast country also means that many rural Catholics can only afford to go to Mass three or four times a year. The journey cuts heavily into their wages, so they tend to make it a visit of several days, staying in the church compound, attending instruction classes and receiving the sacraments. The queues for Confession are huge.
Yet in spite of continuing hardships, the situation appears to be improving. The priest reported that the first visitors to China after the end of the Cultural Revolution "brought back the news that the Church, so far from having disappeared, had indeed spread further than ever before." During the 1980s and 1990s, much Church property has been restored "albeit in a deplorable condition" and where priests are available, Mass is celebrated daily, although there is little opportunity for the young to deepen their knowledge of the faith.
COMMUNISM FELL in Russia five years ago, but the Orthodox Church in the exhausted country battles on against a lack of money for reconstruction of churches, denominational intolerance and above all a lack of revival of ecclesiastic life which "alone could guarantee a healthy development of the Church" according to Orthodox Archpriest Ioann Sviridov.
At the same time, "a peaceful solution to controversial problems is closely connected to the development of religious education in Russia," he told the congress. "Theological education must also be put on a scientific base and stop being some sort of autoeducation by enthusiasm. In this context the academic experience of foreign theological schools should be used." As director of the Christian Channel Moscow and of the Orthodox Radio Sofia, he also believes another solution lies in the use of media. "There are many opportunities," he said. "But they are not well used."
Meanwhile Ethiopia is facing an "enormous mushrooming in sects" an alarming number of faithful are abandoning the Orthodox, Evangelical and Catholic Churches to join new Pentecostal Congregations, while in Cuba where not so long ago official propaganda consigned Jesus to myth the Church is virtually incapable of coping with its recent growth, and the demands of the new faithful on its sorely undersized clergy.
But the founder of Aid to the Church in Need, 83-yearold Fr Werenfried van Straaten, is optimistic that the charity can continue to help these countries which went through so much suffering and oppression at the hands of Marxist regimes. "For over 40 years we did all we could to ease the needs created by communism, by simply trying to do God's will from one day to the next," he told 260 delegates, guests and journalists from 25 countries. "Now, to our astonishment, we find that our enterprise numbers hundreds of thousands of valiant Christians who, clothed in the armour of God, have warded off communism by their prayers, healed the wounds it has dealt, consoled its victims, honoured those it has martyred, supported its dissidents, prevented its spread in the Third World and encompassed its spiritual downfall."