Dialogue in Vermont

At St. Michael’s they gathered recently to ponder the question whether religion and Communism are parallel or antithetical, and the thing to do was to keep your mind open, and listen, listen, listen . . .

There was considerable Catholic disgruntlement last spring, not exactly- deafening to be sure, at the efforts of Robert Hutchins and his friends to co-opt Pope John for the purposes of the secular Left. The “Pacem in Terris” extravaganza staged in New York by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions was plainly a demonstration on behalf of pacifist, accommodationist adjustments in U.S. foreign policy. Hutchins had seen to it, moreover, that official Soviet spokesmen were on hand, obviously intimating that the Vatican and the Kremlin had at last found some common ideological ground. Not surprisingly the Liberal Catholic magazines coyly approved — the Hutchins show was, after all, very much in keeping with the avant garde’s vision, already being tested in Europe, of a Christian “dialogue” with Communists. But other Catholic quarters were not pleased at all, and many members of the hierarchy were privately indignant at what they deemed a cynical exploitation of John’s celebrated encyclical. The interpretation and application of John’s thesis, they huffed, was primarily the business of Catholic authorities whose understanding of the theoretical and moral framework in which a Dialogue might proceed was rather more exacting than the secular establishment’s. (See NR, Mar. 23, 1965.)

LB

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L. Brent Bozell Jr.

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At St. Michael’s they gathered recently to ponder the question whether religion and Communism are parallel or antithetical, and the thing to do was to keep your mind open, and listen, listen, listen . . .

There was considerable Catholic disgruntlement last spring, not exactly- deafening to be sure, at the efforts of Robert Hutchins and his friends to co-opt Pope John for the purposes of the secular Left. The “Pacem in Terris” extravaganza staged in New York by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions was plainly a demonstration on behalf of pacifist, accommodationist adjustments in U.S. foreign policy. Hutchins had seen to it, moreover, that official Soviet spokesmen were on hand, obviously intimating that the Vatican and the Kremlin had at last found some common ideological ground. Not surprisingly the Liberal Catholic magazines coyly approved — the Hutchins show was, after all, very much in keeping with the avant garde’s vision, already being tested in Europe, of a Christian “dialogue” with Communists. But other Catholic quarters were not pleased at all, and many members of the hierarchy were privately indignant at what they deemed a cynical exploitation of John’s celebrated encyclical. The interpretation and application of John’s thesis, they huffed, was primarily the business of Catholic authorities whose understanding of the theoretical and moral framework in which a Dialogue might proceed was rather more exacting than the secular establishment’s. (See NR, Mar. 23, 1965.)