Roman Catholicism

Sir,—With reference to discussions on Roman Catholicism, I feel it is significant that the three largest Catholic Powers, Italy, France and Brazil, have respectively the first, second and fifth largest Communist Parties outside the Soviet Union. When we consider the other large anti-clerical parties in Italy and France, it is apparent that millions of nominal Catholics view the Roman Catholic Church with suspicion and even hostility despite centuries of indoctrination. The failure of the Worker-Priest movement in France showed the difficulty of beating down these feelings. It showed also that even hand-picked priests, once out of their artificially sheltered monastic surroundings, are more likely to be influenced by the workers than vice versa. Catholic Spain and Portugal, two dictatorships with the lowest living standards and highest illiteracy rates in Western Europe, may well be pondered. True, in many South American Republics the Catholic Church is in the process of jumping on to popular bandwagons, but it has no consistent record of resistance to appression to be proud of. When we remember Mexico and Peron such belated actions seem obviously opportunistic. The reported opposition of French Bishops to the Algerian War shows the decline of their influence, for the Catholic Parties in the French National Assembly are among the most vigorous supporters of the continued enslavement of Algeria. Only the Communists, together with some Radicals and Socialists, and all too few of the Catholic Left, have declared themselves against continuation of the war.

Or is the opposition of the French Bishops as real as the opposition of the Italian, Croatian and Slovak clerics to Fascism before and during the last war?

There remains one anomalous Catholic state—Ireland—but then people that believe in fairies, in this Twentieth Century, can be bamboozled into anything.

—Macquertal.