Catholic B ridging the gap

reaction to social reform
Catholics and the Welfare State by Peter Coman (Longman £5.25) I started to read this book hostile to its apparent elm and purpose. The blurb states: "The Vkelfare State conflicted with the principles of Roman Catholic social teaching". To many of my father's generation the concepts of the Welfare State seemed to be the embodiment of Catholic Dr Coman examines Catholic social teaching at the time of the introduction of various reforms and examines them in relation to the reactions of the hierarchy and Catholic laymen of the time.
Unfortunately it was mainly the articulate, who had an opportunity to stop, think and discuss, who criticised the establishment of the Health Service and some of the principles of social security.
Those who were to be the beneficiaries of both services were not too bothered by the niceties of the philosophical argument and regarded them as strengthening the family rather than weakening it.
It is significant that only in education were Catholics particularly prepared to maintain their particular sub-culture. Many had been educated in Catholic schools and most had made a contribution towards them.
Separate Catholic hospitals, Catholic social security and Catholic theories of social justice seemed unrealistic in society at the time, and to the majority of Catholics not worth defending. I started reading this book hostile to it, but to be fair, when I read it a second time I came to consider not that I accepted the degrees or the arguments of Dr Coman — nor indeed did I feel that in his examination of social teaching and the conclusion that he draws in his partial examination of the post-Vatican II situation — but that I agreed on many of the reasons why the Church in England Is in its present confused state. I now thoroughly recommen1 it. Not because I necessarily agree with the argument. but that people will stop and take stock of the present position of Catholics in our past Christian society. It is a book that needs to be read and re-read, for the argument is tightly written and not always developed as fully as it deserves. II is a piece of disciplined writing, well worth reading by any person who wants to try to evaluate the present position of the Catholic Church and of the Catholic sub-culture in contemporary Britain.
Ike Christian-Marxist Dialogue and Beyond by Peter Hehblethwaite (Darton, Longman and Todd, London, paperback £2.50)
This is a welcome paperback, reviewing the attempts which Christians have made in the past 20 years to dialogue with Marxists and Marxist thought in different parts of the world.
In this short period, radical changes have taken place: from the outright condemnation of Communism as "intrinsically evil". the Pope now receives Communist leaders in audiences and not a few Christians either acknowledge their debt to the Marxist method or claim to be Marxists.
Peter Hebblethwaite traces these changes From the Christian-Marxist contacts that were made in Europe in the 1960s (in which he participated) across to Latin America e it h the contribution of the Liberation Theologians and the Christians for Socialism movement, over to the non-dialogue with Maoist China and hack again to present-day Europe for a brief look at the Communist Parties of Western Europe.
All through the book, he returns to the ideology of Marxism and ex
amines how ideology in different
parts of the globe have — and possibly could incorporate this ideology into Christian thinking.
In the end, Hebblethwaite is pessimistic: he secs no final linking of Christian and Marxist thought for, he claims, Marxism propounds a precise blueprint for the ordering of society, but the Church has always to be for ever "open", providing for mankind the criteria by which any system must be judged.
It was in the final chapter that the present reviewer felt the book was weakest. Hebhlethwaite s:rongly attacks Marxist ideology and practice, but most of his arguments can he, and have been. discussed by Marxists in recent years.
For example, Poulantzas and Mandel do incorporate the "affluent worker" into Marxist theory, while recent interpretations of Marx allow for a certain independence of the economic base from the ideological superstructure. Furthermore, the argument that Marxism exists only as a vision and not in the real world reminds one of Chesterton's remark that the problem with Christianity is not that it hasn't worked but that it hasn't been tried yet!
What these points do show. however. is that the ChristianMars ist debate is still wide open, and it is to he hoped that a person ho writes as interestingly and informatively as the present author will take us through the next 20 years of this important dialogue.
Roger Riddell