POLICIES and AIMS

ON ' our letters page a correspondent discusses the reported attempt py a small handful of priests in China who were persuaded at a recent conference called by the Mao Tse Tung Government, to reconcile their Catholicism with support for the Communist regime.
Their spokesman was quoted as saying: "Apart from its atheism we agree with all clse in the policies of the Communists and the Government."
As our correspondent points out, the Communists' policies and their atheism are inseparable. Those Christians who believe that they can have the one without aiding the other, and who try to convince themselves that there is a similarity, if not an identity of aims, because both the Communist and the Christian " want a better world " arc deceiving themselves — or have allowed themselves to be deceived by the Communists.
The practice of Communism involves working towards the reconstruction of the world according to a pattern in which God has no place. The Communist believes that he and his allies can, because they have a Marxist understanding of the mechanics of a purely material universe, direct man's evolution and even in time fashion the world to his own desire.
He believes that as economic conditions are perfected by him so will man be perfected too. His aim is not just a new world, but a world remodelled in order that a new self-sufficient man may be evolved.
The new Marxist world would bear no resemblance to a Christian one. The new man in Marx would stand at the exact opposite pole to the new man in Christ. There can be no "dialogue" between two groups of people with such widely different aims.
We cannot first work with the Communist, and by so doing assist him to reorganise the world without God. and then at some future date "Christianise" the process. That is an error into which many people in the West. with far less excuse than has the little group of Chinese priests, have fallen.
The Communist Parties of the world are led by men who understand the Marxist philosophy, who know and approve of its aims, and know or believe they know how these may be achieved.
It is the leaders' aims, not those of their followers. which count in such a disciplined, centrally directed, totalitarian movement.
THE few Chinese priests who, isolated and under great pressure, have been persuaded or coerced into "going along with the regime" have reached this position in circumstances which are such that no one living this side of the Iron Curtain dare in
charity condemn them. The only remarkable thing is the smallness of their numbers.
For those who still live in the Free World, however, it is a different matter. Here, we can
quietly think — and pray — out our positions, free both from the threat of Red terror and from the more subtle but more effective pressure which Communist governments maintain upon their Christian communities.
We. as least, should be able to see that Communist policies and Communist aims cannot be separated; that if you cornpromise on the one, you aid the other.
THAT the Christians have had their losses at the hands of the Communists cannot be denied—Red China itself stands as a sobering reminder of this. But no man is in a position to say which has gained most so far. God alone knows that.
Inevitably, Communism, aggressive and pushful, has helped to create or stimulate the development of its opposite. Its very successes have compelled men to take it more seriously and have also immensely increased the awareness of its intrinsically evil nature. As its method of working to split the opposing forces has come to be better understood, a natural result has been the achievement of a degree of political and economic unity in the Free World which, with all its limitations, might otherwise have been impossible.
Much of the Christian reaction has been "negative", taking the form of a narrow anti-Communism. But there has been a healthy "positive" reaction, too. There can he little doubt, for example, that the present greater emphasis upon the need for lay leaders in Asia, Africa and the West. whilst it grows naturally out of the Church's thought and teaching, owes something to the challenge and activities of the Communists.
The Legion of Mary has grown in prestige and in stature. precisely because of the blows it received at the hands of the Chinese Communist government. The Patrician Movement, a recent but notable addition to organisations concerned with the lay apostolate, is bringing a new interest in, and understanding of the Faith and is spreading to one country after another. This, too, undoubtedly owes something of its origin and purpose to the example of the Communists themselves. Catholic Action among trade unionists, students, intellectuals and others has been stimulated by the Communist onslaught on the Church.
Many a Christian has in recent years been driven to a greater appreciation of his Faith, and has made a more determined effort to practice it, because the events of our time have compelled him to realise that he lives in a world where millions suffer in defence of what he has hitherto valued so lightly.
It is conceivable that even whilst the Communists try to use Christians to achieve their new atheistic world. they help indirectly. and against their will, to bring other sections of mankind nearer to Christ. Not all the gains have gone to the Communists. And some of their most significant losses may well be those which are least obvious today.