A. The Council’s Failure to Condemn the Moral Evil of
Communism [1]
Historical Sketch
Despite the claims to
charismatic inspiration for the Council, the opinion of many of the Fathers
that large parts of Europe would become overtly Communist, were later shown to be mistaken. Such an opinion led to the policy of ‘the outstretched
hand.’ In accordance with this policy, the Kremlin permitted two prelates of
the Patriarchate of Moscow to attend the Council on condition that the Council
made no explicit condemnation of Communism [2].
It seems that in 1962 a secret meeting had been arranged in Metz between
Cardinal Tisserant and Metropolitan Nikodim to this effect. In 1964 Pope Paul
VI agreed with the prelate responsible for re-elaborating the chapter in Gaudium et Spes on atheism that any
condemnation of Communism should be avoided. He encouraged him by telling him:
‘Yes, it is at the same time delicate and indispensable’ [3]. The editors of the document maintained that a
condemnation would not have conformed to the pastoral character of the Council,
and would have constituted an obstacle to ‘dialogue’ with the Communist
régimes.
The Traditionalist
‘International Group of Fathers’ made an appeal to the other Fathers of whom
334 joined in complaining that Communism had not been condemned. The petition
consisting of the Fathers’ modi
(amendments), together with their signatures, was handed in by Monsignors
Proença Sigaud and Lefebvre on the final day established for such
communications. 71 additional Fathers wrote 10 days later, and a further 30 at
the beginning of November. The lateness of the arrival of these two subsequent
batches of documents did not, however, disqualify them from consideration by
the Commissions in question, since they counted as ‘adhesions’ to the 335
amendments already handed in.
The petition reached Monsignor
Achille Glorieux, who, however, failed to convey it to the Commissions working
on the schema. Father Wiltgen described the fact that one man had been able
prevent a document of such importance from reaching the commission to which it
had been officially addressed, as a great tragedy and a major scandal. On the
subsequent protest of Monsignor Carli, Monsignor Glorieux claimed that the
petition had arrived after the time limit, which the Council Secretary
Monsignor Felice promptly showed to be false. The following month, Monsignor
Garrone, Relator of the Commission for the Schema, affirmed in the general
congregation that the Commission’s procedure conformed to the Council’s
‘pastoral aim’, with the ‘express will’ of the two Popes, and the tenor of the
discussions on this subject on the Council floor. Monsignor Carli presented a
recourse that the assembly be given the amendments, as was allowed for by the
rules, but the petition had mysteriously disappeared [4].
Furthermore, it turned out
that Cardinal Tisserant had not even convoked the relevant Presidential Counsel
to examine the recourse, because, as he later explained to the Pope in a
meeting in the Pope’s study on the 26th November, Cardinal
Wyszynski, a member of the Counsel, was so intransigently opposed to Communism.
All the members of this meeting, which consisted also of Cardinal Cicognani,
and Monsignors Garrone, Felice and Dell’Acqua, agreed that that the Council
should not renew the condemnation of Communism. Consequently, the sections of Lumen Gentium concerning atheism
remained substantially the same. Amongst the few amendments admitted, the most
significant shall now be examined.
Analysis
of Text
‘The
church… cannot cease, as in the past, to deplore, sadly yet with the utmost
firmness, those harmful teachings and ways of acting which are in contrast with
reason and with common human experience, which cast humanity down from the
noble state to which it was born’ (LG 21).
The Pope ensured that this
text was furnished with a footnote, after the words: ‘as in the past’,
referring to other Papal encyclicals which did explicitly condemn Communism,
although the footnote does not state this expressly. We see then that the
complaints of the Fathers were not accepted, and Communism was not explicitly
condemned. The Fathers of the International Group had warned that: ‘…to-morrow
the Council will be reproved – and justly so – for its silence on Communism
which will be taken as sign of cowardice and conniving’ [5].
Archbishop Lefebvre wrote subsequently: ‘the refusal by this pastoral Council
to issue any official condemnation of Communism alone suffices to disgrace it
for all time, when one thinks of the tens of millions of martyrs, of people
having their personalities scientifically destroyed…’ [6].
We saw above that Monsignor
Garrone had warned that the condemnation of communism would not be ‘pastoral’,
as though pastorality consisted merely in the administration of the internal
affairs of the Catholic Church. But the primary meaning of pastorality, as we
have observed above, is governance: principally through the proclamation of
Truth and Morals and the condemnation of error and evil, proclamations that are
to be addressed not just to Catholics, but to the whole world. An example is
the Church’s constant condemnation of Freemasonry in the past. For this reason
the condemnation of Communism would indeed have been eminently pastoral, in
condemning its evil and in warning Catholics against supporting it. The
Council’s failure to condemn it can only be understood as resulting from a lack
of Faith and of the courage which Faith brings with it, so as to prefer peace
between men to the Truth [7].
[1] RdM VI 9; MD pjc ch.11
[2] Pope Paul VI sent a note to Monsignor Felice
during the Council concerning the possibility of such a condemnation, referring
to ‘the Council’s engagements... not to speak of communism (1962)’ (‘gli impegni del Concilio... di non parlare
di comunismo (1962)’ ). The date cited appears to refer to the meeting in
Metz and to confirm the Vatican’s commitment not to condemn Communism in any
form during the Council.
[3] ‘Oui,
c’est à la fois délicat et indispensable’
[4] ‘a member of the Commission admitted that this was by
no means the only intervention which had been ‘sidetracked in this way’ cf.
Cardinal Heenan, A Crown of Thorns p.343, MD pjc p.152
[5] Fr. Wiltgen the Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p.
274, MD pjc, p.150
[6] Lettres aux amis et bienfaiteurs, 9, MD pjc, p.149
[7] which constitute futher examples of the false
principles of scepticism and
subjectivism
