Communism

[dominikus28]

I know that the Church opposes Communism, right? But isn’t that a political ideology? Aren’ t priests prohibited to participating in political activities?

 

[rwoehmke]

Comrade, lets discuss current issues. You seem to be stuck in a time warp. Maybe a good book on the History of Separation of Church and State in this country would relieve the gas in your intestines.

 

[Nita]

I know that the Church opposes Communism, right? But isn’t that a political ideology? Aren’ t priests prohibited to participating in political activities?

The Church opposes atheistic Communism. It is the atheism it opposes. There would be no problem with a nation choosing communism as their form of government as long as they upheld religious freedom.

 

[Nita]

Comrade, lets discuss current issues. You seem to be stuck in a time warp. Maybe a good book on the History of Separation of Church and State in this country would relieve the gas in your intestines.

Communism is still a current issue in some countries.

 

[bpbasilphx]

A distinction needs to be made between communism in general (which is really an economic theory), and Marxism in particular.

A monastery is, basically, a small communist society where everything is held in common. If you doubt me, read the Rules of St. Benedict and St. Basil. But they are not Marxist.

Marxism is also primarily an economic theory, though it has a philosophic basis. (I wonder how many people posting here know it.)
However, it’s an economic theory so artificial it needs a political system to support it.

So I believe you’re mistaken, dominikus28, when you say that Communism is primarily a political ideology.

 

[cue]

The Church opposes atheistic Communism. It is the atheism it opposes. There would be no problem with a nation choosing communism as their form of government as long as they upheld religious freedom.

There is more at play than atheism. The Church also opposes the lack of recognition of human dignity and a misunderstanding of human nature that most forms of communism engender.

 

[DocCormac]

I would agree, Cue. A relatively recent example is Louis Althusser’s widely taught essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” in which the Neo-Marxist philosopher demotes the dignity of personhood to the inevitability of subjection. “The (good) subjects work all right all by themselves,” not under the threat of the old guard ‘might makes right’ but by their acceptance of being appellated as subjects. Any notion of personhood becomes, therefore, subsumed in the machinations of ideology.

Tellingly, Althusser proceeds in the finale of the essay to ‘demonstrate’ how all of Christianity is merely ideology.

After having been exposed in grad school to Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton, and a score of other Marxist thinkers, I cannot conceive of their ideas as consonant with the Catholic understanding of personhood, much less the much broader topic of religious freedom.