Catholicism vs. Communism

Quite literally, the ideological battle of the (past) century.  Weigel lays it out quite starkly on pgs. 31-32 of his latest book, The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II -- The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy. And of course, the logic behind the conflict isn't difficult to unearth.

Marxism proclaims the end of inequality--a radical end, a revolutionary and total end, an effacing of any sort of hierarchy, following the premise that men are truly, totally equal. Equal in all ways. Thus, the only thing preventing anyone from becoming as great/wealthy/powerful as any other person is inequity in the structure of society. The world is programmed to hold certain arbitrarily determined classes of people down. Marxism holds out the promise of wiping the slate clean, permitting all men equal access to all things, to resources and opportunities and whatever they need to actualize their own equal potential. Sure, some heads get cracked, some bad things happen--but it's justified by the fact of oppression. Any evil that occurs in the process of the equalizing revolution is the fault of the oppressors.  If they hadn't been oppressive, no revolution would have been necessary. All evil is the fault of the dominant class(es). The proletariat is, necessarily, innocent.  The repressed, the downtrodden can do no wrong--they are no longer moral agents.

Catholicism, on the other hand, proclaims that hierarchy is writ, not merely into the order on this earth, but also ultimately. God is the Creator, Uncreated, Eternal, All-Powerful, Being in a way that no creature can ever be. There is, was, and ever shall be radical inequality at the heart of all things. God is God, and no creature shall ever be his equal, save by his condescension and courtesy. But ontologically, in the fundament of our being--never.  Further, the angels are greater than we are, though we shall one day be greater than they.  We are greater than the animals, and so forth. There is an order to all things.  And though Catholicism has stood firm, especially in the person of John Paul II, for human rights and in defense of human dignity, rooted in human equality, we do not proclaim the sort of radical equality argued for by Marxism. Humans differ in intellect, in ability, in talent, in strength, in age, in an innumerable array of ways, and so certain patterns shall recur. Some shall prosper in war, and some in peace; some in business, and some in government; some in agriculture, and some in craft; some in many areas, and some in few. Humans are not basically equipped with the exact same set of resources and talents.  The greater are obligated to love and care for the lesser, because humans are brothers. And failures to acknowledge and live up to this obligation helped generate the great Communist tide that seemed set to sweep away the world as it had been.

Since the Church had been part of that world for some 1800 years to that point and often held that world together in the face of the fall of Rome, Saracen invasions, plague, disaster, schism, etc., naturally we were perceived as a key enemy in the struggle. Further, the hierarchical nature of the Church would stand as a challenge so long as we existed. And, as is well known, Catholics regularly failed to live up to the high call of the Faith, giving scandal by our failures and helping generate the conditions which created Marx and his philosophy in the first place.  Putting all these together generated the hostility and paranoia among Communists about the Church Weigel describes in his book.