CHRISTIAN-MARXIST DIALOGUE IN AMERICA
Swidler, Leonard
Pius XII's comment about negotiating with Communists--"Why speak when there is no common language?" --seems to be the motto of Casaroli's most vocal critics. Strongly anti-Communist, these...
...Has it happened...
...But we also know what happened to "Communism with a Human Face...
...Can it happen...
...Will it happen...
...The most intense, forthright and fruitful public exchanges occurred in the morning and evening sessions of the last day, after a festive banquet the night before...
...The Marxists publicly insisted time and again that they in the Communist world were "firmly committed to peaceful co-existence between the East and the West on the long term, and not just as a short-term tactic," as one Soviet put it...
...Their doubts were well expressed in an editorial which appeared last year in the West German monthly Stimmen der Zeit...
...is, yes, if these rules are followed...
...When it became Yuri, Rudi, Paul and Len, and personal friendship and trust began, true communication, real dialogue, also began...
...there were only nonanswer responses...
...The Symposium (the .first major "Christian-Marxist Dialogue" in America) was held at Rosemont College, a Catholic women's college in the Philadelphia area, from January 10 to 13...
...Vladimir Bruskov (Soviet) of the lIP and Monsignor Professor Rudolf Weiler of the IPR...
...After this initial affirmation, the editorial went on to ask a crucial question about Casaroli's diplomacy...
...Casaroli, they say, puts too much emphasis on "summit diplomacy" and agreements with government officials and not enough on the problems of the local Church in question...
...further, what would have been the state of Catholic freedom and self-criticism if a reactionary Vatican had succeeded in crushing Hans Kiing in 19747 Does Christian-Marxist dialogue happen now...
...Most of the Christians attended the Symposium hoping to have a Christian-Marxist dialogue...
...But of course most of the real dialogue took place in the personal, individual encounters...
...These rules include: being open enough to LEONARD SWIDLER, Editor o[ the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, is Pro/essor o/ Religion at Temple University...
...It was a rather stunning sight (and sound) to see the two of them along with an American Catholic and the Orthodox Archbishop Vladimir (Rector of the Theological Academy in Zagorsk, USSR) around a microphone singing Russian and American songs (plus "Gaudeamus igitur"), and further joined by the whole group...
...If so, with what results...
...But he did not mention that his party, as each of the other nonCommunist parties in East Germany, has 52 representatives in parliament (out of about 500...
...With a first step behind us, I look forward to a second step...
...The results...
...This view has received reinforcement from the ranks of the exiled Soviet dissidents...
...According to Levitin-Krasov, the Soviet Union has not complied with a single demand put forth by the Vatican, If, however, the Church were to take a C h r i z t i a n - l q a r x i s t Dialogue i n America LEONARD SWIDLER Christian-Marxist dialogue...
...Dialogue has its own intrinsic rules, and if they are not observed the possibility of dialogue will be destroyed...
...The banquet was marked by European-style toasts, lots of good humor and comradely singing led by Msgr...
...But there are problems in carrying on ChristianMarxist dialogue--far beyond those involved in a dialogue between Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Jews, Christians and Hindus, and the like...
...Weiler and Dr...
...only one was a philosopher...
...II I the partner as possibly to be persuaded by her or him, trusting the sincerity of the partner, maintaining at least a minimally self-critical attitude, being both sufficiently identified with one's community and sufficiently free...
...As every first step it was tentative, shaky, but absolutely indispensable...
...But when Christians pressed the question, "Why was there not similar 'peaceful co-existence' with full right of expression and self-determination for the non-Marxists within Communist states...
...Eleven of the participants were from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, ten from Central and Western Europe, and another thirty-five from North America...
...Marxists, or rather, Communists, are not simply representatives of a world view, but also adherents of a particular political party and social and economic system...
...Some skeptics disagree not so much with the need for a Vatican Ostpolitik as with its present execution...
...4 March 1977:138 "fundamental position," he feels, "its authority would increase immediately...
...They have also encouraged the Soviet authorities to take a more cynical attitude toward religion...
...Does it happen...
...The main objection to the archbishop's diplomacy, according to these skeptics, is its overtly diplomatic nature...
...Anatoli Levitin-Krasov, the founder of religious samizdat in the Soviet Union, thinks that Casaroli's efforts to promote his Ostpolitik have only compromised the Vatican in the eyes of the Soviet people...
...Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who has denounced the West for maintaining contacts with the Soviet Union, has been equally critical of the Vatican for doing the same...
...The differing goals were also reflected in the make-up of the delegations...
...The main organizer of the Symposium was Professor Paul Mojzes of Rosemont College, CAREE, and Managing Editor of JES, in collaboration with Dr...
...Hence, both sides were somewhat disappointed...
...Much the same, though not quite in such severe fashion, has also happened to the ChristianMarxist dialogue which flourished in Yugoslavia until about 1974...
...There is no reason to believe that Catholics would gain greater freedom if the Vatican were to set out on a confrontation course...
...We know from the Prague Spring of '68 that some Communists do think of Communism as including freedom and self-criticism...
...Has the I I Before Catholics become hyper-critical of the Communists in the matter of freedom, they should recall their hypo-critical past wherein many of their best thinkers, e.g., Lammenais, Newman, Lagrange, DeLubac, Murray, Teilhard were silenced, or worse...
...An astute politician, Wyszynski has long understood of human life and the fights and responsibilities human persons and communities need to live out that meaning," most of the Marxists showed no interest in probing them...
...They need t o grant at least the same possibility to Marxists...
...Consequently it was inevitable that when some Christians raised basic questions about the "meaning Vatican let itself be misled by wishful thinking...
...It seems most of the Marxists came wanting a socialist-capitalist meeting...
...This is where Casaroli's critics sound most like Kissinger's...
...It was co-sponsored by the Institute for International Understanding located at Rosemont College, the Institute for Peace Research (IPR) of the University of Vienna (Catholic), the International Institute for Peace (IIP) headquartered in Vienna (Marxist), Christians Associated for Relationships with Eastern Europe (CAREE,--American Christians), and the Journal ot Ecumenical Studies (JES), an inter-religious dialogue quarterly published at Temple University, Philadelphia...
...Answering on the basis of the Rosemont Symposium, one would have to say, yes and no...
...Still, in the cracks and crevices of the public structure of prepared statements and predictable responses some beginnings of dialogue occurred...
...The Marxists were mostly economists, sociologists, political scientists...
...stereotypes began to be replaced by real positions and real persons...
...This view's most persistent supporter is probably Poland's Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski...
...Commonweal: 139...
...Bruskov...
...Strongly anti-Communist, these observers feel that the Vatican has been confusing the basic difference between Communism and Christianity by accepting the Eastern European governments as negotiating partners...
...These and similar intriguing questions can be only partially answered from the experience of a recent Symposium between Christians and Marxists on the subject of "Peaceful Co-existence and the Education of Youth...
...Each began to learn more about how the other really is...
...That banquet was a turning point in the dialogue, or rather, a turning point from largely non-dialogue to beginning dialogue...
...Furthermore, critics such as the Austrian Catholic journalist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn argue, these talks are bound to fail because the Vatican enters into the negotiations in good faith while the Communists retain their goal of destroying religion...
...The answer to the question, can Christian-Marxist dialogue happen...
...Clearly some early future dialogues need to focus on fundamental, more theoretical issues, with delegations picked accordingly (hopefully with a fuller representation of women experts), and some need to concentrate on more immediate practical issues, again with appropriate personnel--just as in the Ecumenical Movement, where there are "faith and order" (i.e., theoretical) and "life and work" (i.e., practical) issues and Consonant agencies and activities...
...Has Christian-Marxist dialogue happened...
...Yes, there were major conferences between such Christian theologians as Karl Rahner and Johannes Metz and such Marxist theoreticians as Adam Schaff and Milan Machovec in the middle '60s, plus joint research and publications, and personal exchanges...
...Is it not rendering service to the other side without a corresponding return...
...it can never have more, or less, than 52, regardless of the number of votes it receives...
...But they changed--and became not less, but more, truly Catholic in the process...
...The Journal el Ecumenical Studies is one of the few American journals that regularly carried such material, but many European magazines have...
...The Marxist partners do not always have the necessary minimal freedom and self-critical attitude...
...An important first step was taken...
...The Christians were mostly philosophers and theologians, or scholars with strong training and orientation toward religious and ultimate human issues...
...Catholics know that until recently it was very difficult for them to enter into any dialogue--or to even appreciate what dialogue really meant--because the necessary freedom and self-critical attitude was largely lacking...
...The Communist (ultimately Soviet) withdrawal of the requisite minimal freedom and selfcriticism has to a large degree led to a "withering away" of the dialogue...
...Rome is compelled to stake all to preserve the life of the Church," it stated...
...For example, a Christian Democratic Union party member and representative to the East German parliament jumped up and in protest pointed to his party's existence as "proof of non-discrimination against non-Communists in East Germany...
Vol. 104 • March 1977 • No. 5
