Marian Helper • Summer 2024 • Marian.org 27 During this time of war and unrest, now into the third year of war between Ukraine and Russia, I get asked all the time: Has the Catholic Church ever officially condemned fascism, nationalism, and Marxism? She certainly has, and for a long time. Look back 90 years to a series of encyclicals by Pope Pius XI in which he addressed all three subjects. On June 29, 1931, responding to the alarming rise of a totalitarian fascist regime in Italy, the Holy Father published Non Abbiamo Bisogno (“We Do Not Need”): A conception of the State which makes the rising generations belong to it entirely, without any exception, from the tenderest years up to adult life, cannot be reconciled by a Catholic either with Catholic doctrine or with the natural rights of the family. It is not possible for a Catholic to accept the claim that the Church and the Pope must limit themselves to the external practices of religion (such as Mass and the Sacraments), and that all the rest of education belongs to the State (52). Response to Hitler The encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (“With Burning Anxiety”) was published on Palm Sunday, March 14, 1937, in response to Hitler’s regime in Germany and the alarming rise in anti-Semitism. Distributed in secrecy, it was read from the pulpit of every Catholic church in the country: Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community — however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things — whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds. … None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God … (Isaiah 40:15). (8, 11) Turning his attention to Spain, Mexico, the Soviet Union, and atheistic communism, Pius XI issued another encyclical one week later: Divini Redemptoris (“The Promise of a Divine Redeemer”): Both man and civil society derive their origin from the Creator, Who has mutually ordained them one to the other. … The Creator Himself has regulated this mutual relationship in its fundamental lines, and it is by an unjust usurpation that Communism arrogates to itself the right to enforce, in place of the divine law based on the immutable principles of truth and charity, a partisan political program which derives from the arbitrary human will and is replete with hate (33). Firm ‘Yes’ Clearly, the answer to the question is a firm yes, and all three encyclicals should be required reading. They are available at Vatican.va. The Catholic Church may not express it often enough, but the position is clear. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, moreover, is unequivocal: Moral judgment must condemn the plague of totalitarian states which systematically falsify the truth, exercise political control of opinion through the media, manipulate defendants and witnesses at public trials, and imagine that they secure their tyranny by strangling and repressing everything they consider “thought crimes” (2499). How Can You Still Be Catholic: 50 Answers to a Good Question by Chris Sparks is available in book and eBook from Marian Press (code B62-BCBB) at ShopMercy.org. Please consider supporting the Marian Fathers’ campaign to fund humanitarian aid to the victims of war in Ukraine. Visit Marian.org/Ukraine. THE CHURCH’S RESPONSE By Chris Sparks Answers to Questions
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