Communism
I am not surprised that the CUR has lost support from many Catholics. I do not support their outlook upon many matters, including Rhodesia. In 1966 I made a pilgrimage to Rhodesia to find out the truth for myself in the interests of peace. I had the privilege of meeting many people from all walks of life. I am not interested in colour, and believe the question of colour is brought into prominence to satisfy an aggressive tendency to divide everything into sides to champion, The CIIR and the Catholic Herald, backed by Bishop Lamont, have consistently sided with the Patriotic Front, sometimes claiming that the leaders of these two killer groups are committed Christians. Killing and being Christians are quite incompatible. I suspect the Patriotic Front represents in the minds of some sympathisers with the IRA an heroic army of freedom fighters. But the IRA or any similar organisation does in no way follow the teaching of Jesus, and no Catholic should back them.
Since 1966 I have worked continuously, as have a great variety of people, for a peaceful settlement, and when the miracle occurred with the introduction of the Internal Settlement, I knew the hand of God was responsible; but the very people of this country who should give all their support to it do exactly the opposite. It often does appear that the Catholic Herald and the CIIR are tinged with Marxism, perhaps unconsciously imbibed at university by young and idealistic but inexperienced people.
As soon as the Internal Settle
ment had established the dual ministries, sanctions against Rhodesia should have been lifted, unilaterally if necessary by Britain and the United States and a team should have been sent out to prepare the various districts for democratic elections.
Both Mr Nkomo and Mr Mugabe have frequently been offered participation like everyone else in the Internal Settlement, with democratic elections to follow at the end of the year — but they have preferred to kill.
In my vast correspondence giving details of my findings to the Commonwealth Office and other powerful places I pointed out the utter stupidity of sanctions. The main people to suffer because of this vast waste of the electorate's money were the under educated people of Rhodesia.
I pointed out a far greater spur to democracy and equality would be the spending of these vast sums of money, now completely wasted, on building higher education schools and more universities in Rhodesia. (Mrs) M. Y. Fuller Wickhambrook, Suffolk.
Referrring to your "News Analysis" article of July 7 on the Catholic Institute for International Relations and its critics, it appears to us that Christianity is acceptable to most "Christians" regardless of how corrupt that Christianity is. The older we get, the more we read. the more we learn, the more we arrive at a simple conclusion: it is the corruption of Christianity which feeds Communism.
What does Christianity mean to the black man in South Africa, Rhodesia, or the peasants of South America? It means two things — oppression and misery. When these people get their "freedom", as indeed they will be force, they will need help to build up their countries. To whom will they turn? It needs little imagination to realise that they will turn to the Communists.
When Communism comes up against the true and staunch Christianity of Christ then it loses, as it appears to be slowly doing so in Poland. Communism can be likened to the vulture: when there is nothing rotten left to feed on then it starves.
In order to fight Communism we must fight our own corrupt Christianity; this, we feel, is what the CIIR is doing. To paraphrase the Gospel, we must take the plank out of our own eye before we can remove the splinter out of others.
In our attempts to raise funds for Third World causes we invariably get the same comment from "Christians": "We're the ones that need the help. Little do these "Christians" realise how right they are!
Julia and Gerry Traynor Kirkby, Liverpool.