The Catholic Case Against Communism

BY: Paul Kengor

In July 2019, America magazine, the top Jesuit publication, published a piece titled, “The Catholic Case for Communism,” with an accompanying photo of Bolivian leader Evo Morales handing a “communist crucifix” to Pope Francis. It suggested that Catholics can find common cause with, or a kindred spirit in, Karl Marx and his atheistic-materialist philosophy.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Having just published a book whose title (The Devil and Karl Marx) suggests just the opposite, it pains me to see that any Catholic would believe that Marx and communism are compatible with Catholicism. Such a notion is astonishing, not only given the Catholic Church’s longtime intense opposition to communism, but also given the intense opposition to Christianity by the founders and disciples of communism. 

Those founders exhibited an intense opposition to Judaism as well, and they harbored some ugly views of Jews and, still more, of Blacks. Those latter views were based in part on an atheistic-materialist commitment to Darwinian evolution that made those founders very racist. 

Where to start? Well, for Marx, the starting point was religion.

“Communism begins where atheism begins,” said Karl Marx. He framed man as not edified or uplifted by religion but in a “struggle against religion.” This is a “struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.” This is why people crave religion as a kind of drug.

Marx despairingly assessed, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

And again, for Marx, it all begins with religion. That’s the foundation that must be razed. 

“The criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism,” said Marx. Religion was among the things he wanted to abolish, along with property, family, “all morality” and more.

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