Report on the Left The Catholic Peaceniks

Any national review reader who thinks that Brent Bozell’s experience at St. Michael’s College (NR, Dec. 14, 1965) is unique should know that the dialogue with the Marxists goes on apace. This notwithstanding the admonition of Pope Paul VI to the recent 31st General Congregation of the Jesuit Fathers in Rome: “To the Society of Jesus . . . in this disastrous time, we entrust the mandate of resisting atheism under the sign and protection of St. Michael. . . . Spare no effort in order to achieve success.”

But the rank and file know better, some of them at any rate. One of these, Father Dan Berrigan, S.J., attended a peace congress in Prague, Czechoslovakia a couple of years ago. He was there three days, and was impressed with what he saw. Then he went to Budapest for a few days. Upon his return he circulated a letter to many friends and acquaintances about Marxism in central Europe. It wasn’t so bad at all—a big improvement. Trains running on time, no unemployment—the usual things. The Church was better off under the Communist regime because it no longer had any privileges. More of a Christian Church than before. In one of his tapes sent to friends in central New York, Father Berrigan declared that Marxism was the wave of the future, while the West persisted in an armaments policy. Unhappily, he said, some princes of the Church, like Archbishop Beran of Czechoslovakia and Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary were still living in the past. They refused an accommodation with the Marxists. Catholic leadership in central Europe must come from outside the ranks of such unprogressive men.

AB

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Anthony T. Bouscaren

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Any national review reader who thinks that Brent Bozell’s experience at St. Michael’s College (NR, Dec. 14, 1965) is unique should know that the dialogue with the Marxists goes on apace. This notwithstanding the admonition of Pope Paul VI to the recent 31st General Congregation of the Jesuit Fathers in Rome: “To the Society of Jesus . . . in this disastrous time, we entrust the mandate of resisting atheism under the sign and protection of St. Michael. . . . Spare no effort in order to achieve success.”

But the rank and file know better, some of them at any rate. One of these, Father Dan Berrigan, S.J., attended a peace congress in Prague, Czechoslovakia a couple of years ago. He was there three days, and was impressed with what he saw. Then he went to Budapest for a few days. Upon his return he circulated a letter to many friends and acquaintances about Marxism in central Europe. It wasn’t so bad at all—a big improvement. Trains running on time, no unemployment—the usual things. The Church was better off under the Communist regime because it no longer had any privileges. More of a Christian Church than before. In one of his tapes sent to friends in central New York, Father Berrigan declared that Marxism was the wave of the future, while the West persisted in an armaments policy. Unhappily, he said, some princes of the Church, like Archbishop Beran of Czechoslovakia and Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary were still living in the past. They refused an accommodation with the Marxists. Catholic leadership in central Europe must come from outside the ranks of such unprogressive men.