Are Catholics permitted to join a Communist political party?

Praisegod Barebones · May 26, 2015

I know that Catholics have been forbidden in the past from joining Communist parties. That said, I have also heard that the decree against communism was declared invalid by the new Code of Canon Law ("Codex Juris Canonici") promulgated on 25 January 1983 by John Paul II. I have browsed the web and cannot find a clear teaching on this issue, so I will pose it here. Can any Catholic give me an "official" answer to this question: Are Catholics now free to join a Communist party without fear of prohibition or excommunication?

Please understand that I am NOT a member of a Communist party. I am also massively aware that the roots of Communist belief are atheistic and largely antithetical to some Catholic social teachings. I am not interested in this aspect of the debate at present. I just want to know if Catholics are PERMITTED to join a Communist party.

St Antony · May 26, 2015

Praisegod Barebones said:
I know that Catholics have been forbidden in the past from joining Communist parties. That said, I have also heard that the decree against communism was declared invalid by the new Code of Canon Law ("Codex Juris Canonici") promulgated on 25 January 1983 by John Paul II. I have browsed the web and cannot find a clear teaching on this issue, so I will pose it here. Can any Catholic give me an "official" answer to this question: Are Catholics now free to join a Communist party without fear of prohibition or excommunication?

Please understand that I am NOT a member of a Communist party. I am also massively aware that the roots of Communist belief are atheistic and largely antithetical to some Catholic social teachings. I am not interested in this aspect of the debate at present. I just want to know if Catholics are PERMITTED to join a Communist party.

I am now reading God's Bankers by Gerald Posner. According to him, Pius XII prohibited membership in not only the communist party but also the social democratic left parties under pain of excommunication. I'm not sure if this was later revoked.

LivingWordUnity · May 26, 2015

Praisegod Barebones said:
I know that Catholics have been forbidden in the past from joining Communist parties. That said, I have also heard that the decree against communism was declared invalid by the new Code of Canon Law ("Codex Juris Canonici") promulgated on 25 January 1983 by John Paul II. I have browsed the web and cannot find a clear teaching on this issue, so I will pose it here. Can any Catholic give me an "official" answer to this question: Are Catholics now free to join a Communist party without fear of prohibition or excommunication?

Please understand that I am NOT a member of a Communist party. I am also massively aware that the roots of Communist belief are atheistic and largely antithetical to some Catholic social teachings. I am not interested in this aspect of the debate at present. I just want to know if Catholics are PERMITTED to join a Communist party.

I think that someone told you a lie. Communism has been condemned by multiple Popes. It was even condemned by Pope St. John XXIII, the one that liberals try to say was one of them. John XXIII even went so far as to say that no Catholic could even subscribe to so-called "moderate Socialism"(Mater et Magistra). And I've never seen anything that said that this was revoked.

"Pope Pius XI further emphasized the fundamental opposition between Communism and Christianity, and made it clear that no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism. The reason is that Socialism is founded on a doctrine of human society which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. Since, therefore, it proposes a form of social organization which aims solely at production, it places too severe a restraint on human liberty, at the same time flouting the true notion of social authority." - Pope St. John XXIII (MAY 15, 1961)

Liberation theology is what I've heard can be okay but only if the Marxist element is removed from it (if that is possible).

Praisegod Barebones · May 27, 2015

St Antony and LivingWordUnity... thanks for sharing. Well, Pius XII must have certainly been aware of the atrocities committed against Catholics in the Communist world of the 20th century, I'll give you that. But he must also have been aware of the same actions coming from the far right; thousands of Catholic priests killed, imprisoned or deported when the Nazis occupied Poland from 1939-45. Certainly ALL political "extremes" were a threat to the Church in the 20th century. but NOW, well into the 21st, we see MAINSTREAM political parties... while not directly persecuting the Church... are at least flagrantly thumbing their noses at us and treating us as irrelevant (which is a far worse persecution in my books!). Democrats are telling us not to be concerned with the sanctity of marriage or the lives of the unborn. Republicans are waging unjust war against the enemies of political Israel (so said John Paul II) and are actively profiting from the situation of fear and control that they have created (Francis).

So maybe the real question is: Is the Church's prohibitions on political parties even worth retaining at this point?

But I still would like a definite answer to the original question, if there's anyone out there who has it...

LivingWordUnity · May 27, 2015

Since the Nazis were socialists it makes no sense to say that they were to the right. Socialism is repugnant to every conservative. So it's a misnomer that the Nazis are called "right-wing" today by left-wing academia. And, actually, that's what communists do. Whenever one of their own becomes infamous they deny that they were a communist. It's the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy. In the case of the Nazis, the leftist historians took it even further by labeling them "right-wing" despite all the evidence that the Nazis were socialists.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Joseph Goebbels

That quote is the communist principle involved in how the Nazis came to be called "right-wing" by most people today.

pdudgeon · May 27, 2015

Praisegod Barebones said:
St Antony and LivingWordUnity... thanks for sharing. Well, Pius XII must have certainly been aware of the atrocities committed against Catholics in the Communist world of the 20th century, I'll give you that. But he must also have been aware of the same actions coming from the far right; thousands of Catholic priests killed, imprisoned or deported when the Nazis occupied Poland from 1939-45. Certainly ALL political "extremes" were a threat to the Church in the 20th century. but NOW, well into the 21st, we see MAINSTREAM political parties... while not directly persecuting the Church... are at least flagrantly thumbing their noses at us and treating us as irrelevant (which is a far worse persecution in my books!). Democrats are telling us not to be concerned with the sanctity of marriage or the lives of the unborn. Republicans are waging unjust war against the enemies of political Israel (so said John Paul II) and are actively profiting from the situation of fear and control that they have created (Francis).

So maybe the real question is: Is the Church's prohibitions on political parties even worth retaining at this point?

But I still would like a definite answer to the original question, if there's anyone out there who has it...

certainly for those not familiar with the various political parties the prohibitions are well worth while to warn them away from danger that they would otherwise court in ignorance.

As we have seen here many times and with many different subjects, the world is well-versed in how to lure the unsuspecting into their trap. So any warnings or prohibitions put out by the church are well worth paying attention to.

Rhamiel · May 27, 2015

well Communists believe that Capitol, the things that generate wealth (farm land, factories, natural resources) should be controlled by the community
Christianity has held that people have a right to own property

so it would seem at the very basic level, Communism is not compatible with Christianity
this has been stated by many Popes

we are not called to all be clones of one another, there is very wide room for debate among Catholics in regards to Politics (lol or just about anything else)
but "wide room" does not mean "anything goes"
Communism is not compatible with the Christian faith
and "you will know them by their fruits"
Communists have killed more people in 100 years then Christianity has in 1,000

St Antony · May 27, 2015

Rhamiel said:
well Communists believe that Capitol, the things that generate wealth (farm land, factories, natural resources) should be controlled by the community
Christianity has held that people have a right to own property

so it would seem at the very basic level, Communism is not compatible with Christianity
this has been stated by many Popes

we are not called to all be clones of one another, there is very wide room for debate among Catholics in regards to Politics (lol or just about anything else)
but "wide room" does not mean "anything goes"
Communism is not compatible with the Christian faith
and "you will know them by their fruits"
Communists have killed more people in 100 years then Christianity has in 1,000

Since communism and communist have acquired such negative connotations, many espousing ideas rooted in Marxist-Leninist ideology now operate under different labels, like socialist, social democratic, progressive among others. As Catholics, we must examine the actual positions of a particular politician or party. If the party or individual is secularist, anti-clerical, or simply believes that Christ has no appropriate role in the public sphere, then these groups are actually similar to Marx and Lenin and communism and should be condemned by Catholics.

LivingWordUnity · May 27, 2015

And the Catholic Church has said that "unbridled" capitalism is unacceptable. But I don't know of any conservative Catholics who are for placing absolutely no limits on capitalism.

Rhamiel · May 27, 2015

LivingWordUnity said:
And the Catholic Church has said that "unbridled" capitalism is unacceptable. But I don't know of any conservative Catholics who are for placing absolutely no limits on capitalism.

good point
I do not really know any Libertarian Catholics, I am sure some of them are out there, but I do not know them

Rhamiel · May 27, 2015

have you ever heard of Distributism?
it is an economic theory that states Small Businesses, Craftsmen, and Family Farms are what should be encouraged

huge beaurocracies, be they Governments or Big Business, do not really work out well for the common man
that a diversified economy made up of the family farm and the local craftsman is the most stable and offers the most dignity to the citizens
I think Pope Leo XIII supported this?

ebia · May 28, 2015

Rhamiel said:
have you ever heard of Distributism?
it is an economic theory that states Small Businesses, Craftsmen, and Family Farms are what should be encouraged

huge beaurocracies, be they Governments or Big Business, do not really work out well for the common man
that a diversified economy made up of the family farm and the local craftsman is the most stable and offers the most dignity to the citizens
I think Pope Leo XIII supported this?

Apart from the fact that every Western government pays lip service to small business while acting in the interests of big business that doesn't seem likely to happen.

But it's also hard to see how it maps onto our contempory economy at all.
A lot of what people spend their money can only be provided by big organisations, by globalised production and distribution, ... Most of our cities where most western populations live are not organised for it, ...

Maybe it would be good. But getting from here to there is so implausible that it looks like a pipe dream distraction from possible changes for the better.

MikeK · May 28, 2015

In spite of their name, no respected historian or economist would call the Nazis socialists. People who persist in doing so are liars who wish to hide from the uncomfortable truth that National Socialism was a far right movement (and remains so - neo-Nazis are far-right on nearly all modern political issues). The Nazis did not call for widespread communal ownership of the means of production and without that they cannot be said to be socialists. Of course, central to the tenants of Nazism was a harsh opposition to communism, which every student of Marx knows is the end goal of socialist policy. Of course, it gets very hard to take certain conservatives seriously when they cristisize imaginary socialists yet excuse Mr Putin's actions signaling a return to communist ideals in Russia.

St Antony · May 28, 2015

MikeK said:
In spite of their name, no respected historian or economist would call the Nazis socialists. People who persist in doing so are liars who wish to hide from the uncomfortable truth that National Socialism was a far right movement (and remains so - neo-Nazis are far-right on nearly all modern political issues). The Nazis did not call for widespread communal ownership of the means of production and without that they cannot be said to be socialists. Of course, central to the tenants of Nazism was a harsh opposition to communism, which every student of Marx knows is the end goal of socialist policy. Of course, it gets very hard to take certain conservatives seriously when they cristisize imaginary socialists yet excuse Mr Putin's actions signaling a return to communist ideals in Russia.

It depends on how you evaluate movements. From my perspective, the scale goes from full government control of everything on one extreme, and little or no government on the other. From that standpoint, conservatives (i.e. Edmund Burke) and libertarians (i.e. Ayn Rand) would be on one end of the spectrum. Although communists and Nazis differed in some ways, they were really pretty similar. Communists/Socialists claimed to care mainly about the means of production and economics, but then were also militantly atheist, anti-Semitic and militaristic. The Nazis cared less about controlling the economy as long as their military and state apparatus was supported, by they were also...wait....atheist, anti-Semitic and militaristic.

Rhamiel · May 28, 2015

National Socialists saw the State as everything and the individual as meaningless
Soviet Socialism also put the emphasis on the collective over the individual

both demonized the financial system, with the Soviets going after all Capitalists while the National Socialists focused on the "Jewish Banker" as a scapegoat for all of Germanys problems
read what Hitler had to say about Capitalism, he hated it, thought it made nations weak
he also hated Soviet Socialism
but this does not mean that he was not a Socialist
I mean, look at the religious wars in Europe in the 1500's
Catholics and Protestants really went after eachother
both sides had really hateful things to say about the other
but both were Christian

and while Germany allowed for private ownership of business, they also heavily regulated those businesses, so the idea of State control was still there
we could argue that Soviet Socialism was closer to what Marx intended then what Germany had... but really, Soviet Socialism was not pure Marxism either, Marx saw the "Revolution" taking place in economically, scientifically, and culturally advanced nations like England and... well... Germany.... at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia was a backwater

Tallguy88 · May 28, 2015

This is why Left/Right doesn't encompass a large enough spectrum to accurately classify things like Fascism and Communism. A better system of viewing them is something like the political compass which is arranged like an xy grid. Left and right (the x axis on a grid) represent economic Left and Right with Communism representing the far Left and unregulated Capitalism representing the far Right. Up and down (the y axis on a graph) represents authoritarianism and anarchy as opposite extremes. Fascism is near the center economically and very authoritarian. Soviet style communism is pretty far Left (they still had currency and a kind of market economy, otherwise it would be far far Left) and, like Fascism, was very authoritarian.

So they certainly shared some ideals, mostly in being oppressive and dictatorial, but differed significantly economically. The USSR nationalized everything, all the means of production, industry, etc. belonged to the State. Whereas under the Nazis, private ownership and big business thrived (especially industrial and military-supplying businesses).

Praisegod Barebones · May 28, 2015

LivingWordUnity said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Joseph Goebbels

Actually, for the record, that's a common misquote and is taken completely out of context. Goebbels (and Hitler himself), when speaking about "the big lie" always ascribed this technique to the "Jews and Marxists". As reference, please see Mein Kampf. James Murphy, translator. London, New York, Melbourne: Hurst and Blackett Ltd; April 1942; page 134.

As for the Nazis being socialists, yes I agree there is some truth to this (they were the "National Socialist German Workers Party" after all). But that doesn't mean they weren't on the far right; they were. My first year polisci prof once explained to me "the political spectrum is actually one big circle... go to the right far enough and you end up on the left, and vice versa." So, LivingWordUnity, maybe your perspective and my own meet together somewhere around the back of observable reality!

But we are digressing from the question at hand.

Praisegod Barebones · May 28, 2015

Tallguy88 said:
This is why Left/Right doesn't encompass a large enough spectrum to accurately classify things like Fascism and Communism. A better system of viewing them is something like the political compass which is arranged like an xy grid. Left and right (the x axis on a grid) represent economic Left and Right with Communism representing the far Left and unregulated Capitalism representing the far Right. Up and down (the y axis on a graph) represents authoritarianism and anarchy as opposite extremes. Fascism is near the center economically and very authoritarian. Soviet style communism is pretty far Left (they still had currency and a kind of market economy, otherwise it would be far far Left) and, like Fascism, was very authoritarian.

Right on. THanks for mentioning this. You know what? A number of years ago a friends of mine sent me a link to this "xy grid" political map. I answered a series of questions on the website and it plotted me on the X-Y axis... right on top of Pope John Paul II ! I kid you not! I was protestant at the time, but THEN began to take a serious look at Catholicism for the first time. A few years later I was Confirmed! Praise God.

Maynard Keenan · May 28, 2015

How did the ridiculous, and false, idea that Nazis were atheist become so widespread?

Rhamiel · May 28, 2015

what tall guy said

Are Catholics permitted to join a Communist political party?

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