Now that this prerequisite had been respected, the speakers were able to move on to more important topics, namely under-development, class struggle and socialism.
On 4th April, 1952, Monsignor Benedetto Falcucci had already written the following in Osservatore romano: ‘There are many communist aspirations that are righteous and deserve to be welcomed with enthusiasm’.
Nowadays, those who utter such words belong to the other camp. In L’Humanité, Mr Jacques Milhau published an article entitled ‘Chrétiens et membres du parti communiste?’438 It was judged to be overly timid by some readers, one of whom wrote: ‘For a period of 20 centuries, Christians have been imparting certain values. Does Marxism turn a blind eye to them? In my personal view, a Christian communist must, practically speaking, be a Marxist Christian. There are some who are indeed like that. Christians are capable of venturing very far in historical and dialectical materialism; to the very borders where the philosophical affirmation of atheism begins’.
In response to this, Mr Jacques Milhau439 reminded everyone that the Communist Party had ‘broken with both anticlericalism and the simplistic explanations of religion, the latter having been equated with a mystifying endeavour’. In a reference to Engels’ analyses of ancient Christianity, he even specified that ‘the contributions made by Christianity must be acknowledged’.
It is on this very necessity of ‘returning to one’s sources’ that the doctrinaires of the Communist Party insist when appealing to the ‘intrinsic socialism’ of primitive Christianity, a Christianity which, 2000 years ago, contributed to the destruction of the family, the negation of one’s fatherland, and the ruining of both society and the Roman Empire.
What the Communist Party has, in some way, revealed to the faithful is that ‘original sin consisted in the destruction of primitive equality through the individual appropriation of wealth and the exploitation of man at the hands of his fellows’, to use the words of professor Louis Rougier.
In the eyes of the new Christians, Christ is ‘consubstantial with the human species’. God shall, therefore, never relinquish the matter into which he once incarnated. In other words, the Church must ‘incorporate humanity’ into Jesus’ salvational deed, a task that consists in acting upon this world so as to pave the way for the advent of a ‘new and final’ man, rather than offering mankind the prospect of its own spiritual survival after death.
On the Church in the Contemporary World
For Mr José-Maria Gonzalez-Ruiz, a theologian of the ‘dialoguing’ type, the Church’s mission does not lie in becoming the centre of the world, but indeed in ‘strengthening itself in order to bestow salvation upon all and lead the world towards the end-point of its fulfilment’ (in Croire après Marx,440 Cerf, 1971). He specifies that the instrument of the world’s slow maturation ‘is embodied by the enlivening breath of Love, that of fraternally universal Love’.
With socialism understood as one of the shapes which the love of one’s neighbour may indeed assume, the message of the Gospels would thus allow us to attenuate the ‘dialectic of violence’ and to illuminate in advance the fulfilled world of universalistic and coagulating ideologies. And it is in praxis, meaning the communist method, that this message would find its own means of realisation.
From Mr Gonzalez-Ruiz’s point of view, Marxism must not ‘sacralise logic’ through the denial of the divine principle, while Christianity must, on its part, avoid ‘profaning the transcendence of God’ by rationalising it. Hence the following conclusion: ‘If Christians strip Marxism of all that is ideological, meaning optional and unverifiable, they will be able to accept the entire scientific truth of Marxism’.
Such a procedure is obviously bizarre, for one may wonder what ‘non-ideological’ Marxism would look like or what would be left of Faith if one removed all that is ‘unverifiable’ from it.
The Holy See’s calculating reticence, however, comes across as disguised encouragement.
On 14th May, 1972, Pope Paul VI sent cardinal Maurice Roy, the president of the Secular Council and the acting archbishop of Montreal, an apostolic letter of the highest importance. In an utterly innovative stance compared to the Church’s social teachings (Quadregesimo Anno, Rerum Novarum, Mater et Magistra), he appealed most pressingly to everyone, urging them ‘to take action’ within the mindset of the ‘Pastoral Constitution on the Church of the Modern World’ (Gaudium et Spes), decreed on 7th December, 1965, during the Vatican Council.
Expressing no preference for any of the different systems in his presence, the Pope declared himself in favour of a pluralism of options (‘One single Christian faith can lead to different commitments’), relying on the ‘discernment’ of the faithful for the rest.
The door had thus been opened, and the Communist Party took immediate advantage of this.
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Chrétiens et communistes. Semaine de la pensée marxiste,441 27th January — 1st February 1972, a collection published by the Centre for Marxist Studies and Research. Ed. Sociales, 268 pages.
Philosophie et religion,442 a compendium published by the Centre for Marxist Studies and Research. Ed. Sociales, 286 pages.
Croire après Marx, an essay by José-Maria Gonzalez-Ruiz. Cerf, 72 pages.
Les marxistes et l’évolution du monde catholique,443 an essay by Roland Leroy, André Moine and Antoine Casanova. Ed. Sociales, 254 pages.
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On 10th June, 1976, Mr Georges Marchais, the Secretary General of the French Communist Party, gave a speech in Lyons in which he praised ‘the necessary collaboration’ between the communists and the Christians. A few months earlier, during its 23rd Congress (4th — 8th February, 1976), the Communist Party declared that it renounced the notion of ‘proletarian dictatorship’.
The publishing of a book entitled Communistes et chrétiens, communistes ou chrétiens444 and authored by both Mr Marchais and Mr Georges Hourdin, the founder of ‘Témoignage chrétien’,445 echoed this appeal.
In an essay in which he draws a parallel between Marxist and Christian anthropology, Mr René Coste, a professor at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic Institute in Toulouse, expresses his ‘profound admiration’ for ‘the power, originality and fertility of the Marxist doctrine’. Hailing Lenin’s ‘ingeniousness’ along the way, he reminds readers that ‘Christianity’s revolutionary character is determined eschatologically and finds itself necessarily oriented towards an ultimate catastrophe’ (Analyse marxiste et foi chrétienne,446 Ed. Ouvrières, 1976). He adds: ‘It is all too true that dominant classes tend to elaborate ideologies to their own advantage, that they are assisted in the process by the intellectuals who have pledged themselves to them and that they themselves are often blinded by their own “prejudices”. […] Furthermore, it is all too true that due to their lack of awareness, the members of popular classes have the tendency to adhere to ideologies which rob them of the ability to realise that what they are actually fostering is their own exploitation. It is certain that with regard to these issues, Marx has displayed a high level of clear-sightedness’. The author concludes: ‘For all the reasons stated above, we identify with the socialist “utopia” that lies at the very core of Marxism’ (ibid.).
Since late 1974, ‘Marxist Christians’ (who have rallied around the Cité nouvelle monthly)447 have been expressing their intention to ‘spread subversion into the very heart of institutions’. Basing their attitudes primarily on the works of F. Belo (Lecture matérialiste de l’évangile de Marc,448 Cerf, 1975) and those of Michel Clévenot (Approches matérialistes de la Bible,449 Cerf, 1976), they have undertaken a reflection effort ‘on the practice implemented by Jesus in the Scriptures, the role of symbols and liturgy in class struggle, as well as the — non-official — history of subversive Christianity’. They specify that the legitimacy of such an approach is founded ‘upon the declaration made by Catholic bishops in Lourdes back in 1972’ (Cité nouvelle, December 1976).
Established in April 1972, in the Chilean Capital of Santi
ago, the ‘Christians for Socialism’ movement brings together the Christian militants of the extreme Left, who have come from various countries in Latin America, North America and Europe. Advocating direct involvement in the ‘global revolutionary struggle’, it declares: ‘Religious ideology represents a specific field of struggle that spreads beyond the narrow framework of institutions, sprawling, in fact, across all revolutionary battlefields’.
On their part, Guy Lardreau and Christian Jambet, two young philosophers who once espoused Maoism and have authored a book entitled L’ange450 (Grasset, 1976), recount how, ‘after spending many a night weeping’, they relinquished the Chinese Cultural Revolution (embodied, according to them, by Lin Piao) and adopted the most abstract form of metaphysics. Advocating the dualistic currents that surfaced during the first centuries of Christianity in a most explicit manner, they attempt to define the common aspects that connect the ‘Christian cultural revolution’ to their former convictions: a hatred for the flesh, the rejection of both sexual differentiation and labour, etc. In conclusion, they state that ‘angelism’ is the sole, logical revolutionary attitude. This viewpoint contradicts the theory according to which ‘desire’ embodies the greatest revolutionary strength, as expounded by Jean-François Lyotard (L’économie libidinale,451 Minuit, 1974), Gilles Deleuze452 and Wilhelm Reich.453 Mr Lardreau had previously published an essay of neo-Rousseauian inspiration entitled Le singe d’or454 (Mercure de France, 1973).
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A Church in the Wrong
One day, while in Paris, Maurice Druon455 heard a minister exclaim: ‘God is not almighty. How could He be?’ He then made the following remark: ‘Profanation fails to scandalise ministers, while the clergy’s indifference scandalises non-believers’; to which he now adds: ‘If the ministers themselves cast doubt upon God’s almightiness, where does that leave us? And where does it leave the churches?’
Maurice Druon, a fifty-nine-year-old member of the Académie française, is a bright-eyed man with fine hair: a classical man from every perspective. His work has fed upon ancient history and antique culture, as seen in Les rois maudits,456 Les grandes familles,457 Les mémoires de Zeus,458 and Alexandre le Grand.459 His is a passion for European civilisation, combined with a pronounced admiration for the Stoics.
His book on the Church tells the story of an article and its repercussions.
On 7th August, 1971, Mr Druon published an article in the opinion column of Le Monde entitled ‘Une église qui se trompe de siècle’.460 ‘Natural order dictates that species remain true to themselves. Likewise, social equilibrium demands that institutions remain true to their vocations’. The Church, however, has set out to spread doubt instead of dispensing assurances. It thus finds itself at risk of self-destruction as a result of ‘merging’ with the world. ‘The priest has stripped himself of all distinctive aspects, as if in a desire to convince us that he is a man like any other; but therein lies the rub, for if he is no different from the rest of us, he is completely meaningless’.
The wind of contention that is now blowing through the halls of priesthood is all the more surprising when considering its inappropriateness. For there is nothing left that now threatens the Church, as anticlericalism has been ‘relegated to the shelves of the museum of memories’ and secularism ‘no longer acts as an incentive for conflict’.
Setting himself apart from the usual critics, Mr Druon gives the example of France. It is a country ‘reluctant to be at war with anyone else, where colonialism has been abolished; racism is condemned by the law; human rights are guaranteed by the Constitution; working conditions are regulated and constantly redrafted; families are subsidised; education is dispensed free of charge; and the expenses that result from accidents, illness and old age are partly covered by the community itself. Socially speaking, has anyone ever encountered, over the course of the past two millennia, a society whose essence is more Christian than ours’?
In short, after struggling for twenty centuries in an effort to ensure its own survival, the Church seems intent on targeting itself with the very power it once used against its enemies. It is as if it had ended up missing the very attacks to which it was once subjected.
In conclusion, ‘due to the clergy’s current propensity to mistake this century for another, the air reeks of the Middle Ages’.
Marcus Aurelius and Tertullian
Published during the most tranquil month of the summer holidays, the article had unexpected repercussions. One witnessed the espousal of the most contradictory stances. Mr Druon was accused of exaggeration by La Croix,461 of heresy by France Catholique;462 of fundamentalism by Témoignage chrétien;463 and of positivism by Aspects de la France!464 Some reproached him for having reduced the Church’s mission to the sole accomplishment of its ‘profane aims’, for having confused the verb ‘to evangelise’ with the verb ‘to civilise’ and for being unable to distinguish law from faith. Cardinal Daniélou intervened in the debate, upon which the Reverend Father Cardonnel made the most of things and targeted the cardinalate, proclaiming: ‘God is merely historical in essence. God is solely found in one’s love of their neighbour’. He would then declare: ‘Mankind’s historical fulfilment is also found in Jesus Christ’.
‘What is it that I had written to deserve such abundant mail on the very next day and in the weeks to come, and to merit the reprinting, quoting, and international translation of this text? What is it about it that led private individuals to circulate copies without my knowledge and religious associations to long to spread its contents? And what had I written that, in the end, called for the establishment of such bitter controversy among men who, under various and often the highest headings, hold authority over the paths upon which I had once ventured?’
It is thus this debate that the book strives to echo by reproducing the text published in Le Monde and, most notably, following it up with the opinions and responses of Louis-Henri Parias (France Catholique), Luigi Gedda (Il Tempo), Georges Daix (Valeurs actuelles), Joseph Majault (La Croix), Bruno Carra de Vaux (Témoignage chrétien), Louis Salleron (Carrefour), Michel Fromentoux (Aspects de la France), André Dumas (Réforme), Raymond Veillet (La Nouvelle République), André Piettre (La Revue des deux-mondes), Jacques Villeminot (La pensée catholique), Jean Cardonnel, André Mandouze, Jean Daniélou and Luc Baresta.
Does the author’s personality account for the intensity of the reactions? Compared to Roman Catholics, Maurice Druon defines himself as an ‘external witness’. He had already hinted the following in Le Monde: ‘My catechism lessons lie in the distant past and I admit that I have, since then, been drawn to the views of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius rather than those of Saint Paul and Tertullian’.
He highlights the fact that the Catholic Church still gathers the majority of believers in France, as it has been doing for a long time now. It bears the ‘fundamental responsibility in the transmission of our culture and is, on the other hand, inevitably involved in the life of the state’. The crises that it undergoes also impact the ‘worldly’ domains. ‘Sociological’ witnesses have henceforth both the right and the duty to speak out: ‘God is also a notion of civilisation’.
Among those who ‘contest’, the first ones identified by Mr Druon are the ‘sectarians’, meaning those that claim to be the ‘elite of the Truth’. Despite their proclamations, they are not so much the heralds of a new and ‘purer’ Church as the revivers of an ancient heresy.
‘It all seems so Cathar-like:465 the rejection of both the state and hierarchy; the denunciation of Rome’s power as being no different from any other; the dreams of establishing mystical communities governed by laws that they themselves have passed; their own repartition of property; their own sexual morals; a liturgy of their own, founded upon their own interpretation of the Scriptures — all that these global protesters are doing is taking over from a current that began with the Bogomils466 and, with the inclusion of movements that span from the Waldensians467 to the ‘spirituals’, re-emerges to the European
surface in order to add to the Church’s troubles whenever the latter finds itself in difficulty’, he remarks.
Next in line are the ‘originals’, meaning those who advocate a ‘return to the sources’. They target the current consumer society just as the Judeo-Christians once hurled anathemas at the Roman world.
Mr Druon rectifies their idyllic depiction of the age of catacombs: ‘I would truly like to find out how these new-fangled doctors would undertake to reconcile the message of love, in whose name they bestow upon themselves all kinds of self-indulgence, with the Gospel according to Thomas, for instance, which is ranked among the 50 Gospels that were declared apocryphal when Rome decided to restrict the Scriptures to the 4 Synoptic ones and where the Christ child is depicted as a terrifying and vindictive conjurer’.
Incidentally, ‘is it really a return to the sources, or rather the cutting of roots? Taking into account the intensity of the crisis that is raging within the University and the Church itself, one cannot help wondering whether it is all not a major undertaking that has been devised by some, unconsciously fuelled by the blindness of others and fostered by the dissatisfaction of many; an undertaking whose very purpose is to sever the new generations from their ancestral legacy. Thus will it be possible to mold a new, utopian man for an equally utopian new world’.
Last but not least, we have the ‘demagogue’ category. Being more naïve than evil-minded, they deem it clever to involve themselves in their adversaries’ game, believing that they could somehow manage to win them over. ‘In their hands, the Church would, if worst came to worst, end up becoming a sort of political party that honours its own founder’. They are the ones who ‘reform’ the liturgy, the churches and the structures, targeting ‘superstitions’ and ‘outdated’ forms of worship, and those who denounce monumental excess, artistic luxury and Roman ‘triumphalism’.
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