Conversely, the Churches have an intimate relationship with the domain of politics. It symbiosis, and a brief historial suer ing is difficult to account for this Coherene Church, the Roman Cathole the Roman since the dawn of the imperialist period might contribute to such an understanding.
A prelininary apology for a lack of sharp social focus is necessary, but the oppressive. sour comedy ol callode power in ireland has been rehearsed too often to repeat it here. If the Church as a whole mocks late capitalist society with its populist resistance to rationality, the frish Church's iron grip on education and everyday life and crucial role in the oppression of women. prevents the emergence of a real "secularised democracy and openly resists the timid attempts of tbe bourgeoisie to conjure one out of the materials of underdevelopment and its own historic capitulation to that Church.
Night Thoughts The Catholic Church entered the modern world backwards, chocacing me moalactal synthesis of Church and State. Pius 9th's Syllabus Errorum (1864) denounced liberalism, socialiam, naturalism, democracy and rationalism as deviations, and to forestall possible argument, the final error was decreed to be the notion that the Roman Poutill can or ought to reconcile himsel the Church was protected againse the night modern civilisation". Six years later of reason still further by the decree of infallibility. The structure of aurhority in the Charch had always been monarchical, but this cemed to condemn th Church to a slow conise in splendi olation. Its history since then bas been ntury of night-thoughts, Tantastic soll oquies in a world without god By aggressively entrenching the Church against everything progressive in the mod ern world, Pius 9th seemed to acknowiedge the satisfaction of liber ericate that Catholicism could fight o coomous rearguard actions againat pro es. Keligion cemed marginal to th dynamic of capitalist development in the evolutionary logic even to many socialists. But it hardly needs to be reiterated bere how fatal the belief was that late capitalism ill be free from unreason and sup tion, and the survival of the Church w part of that ineradicable strain of barbarism marking modern westero society as it lunched into the twentieth century Less than a year after the First Vatican Council had been dispersed by the seizure of the Papal lands by the forces of the new Lalian state (with Napoleon IT's help), the Paris Commune reveuled a rather different contradictory aspect of capitalism 10 the outraged bour bois world. 11 was in th novements and ideologies that had forme the Commune that the Church saw its real antagonists and towards whom it became more and more explicitly hostile at the expense of its nominal opposition to apitalist liberalism The Church, as a corporation definite material interests bound up in its ideologically reproductive functions, was willing to accommodate itself to any regime that would permit it to retain its particular rituals of control and its sources of revenue, The deadlock creared by the rejection of history meant that the Church's kingdom not ai this preference was for a world of kingdoms, commited to ensuring that tbe m9890 01 this world thought as little as possible about its wealth. As a result the ultramontane Isolation of the Church fused with the crudest diplomatic and political pragmatIn France after the Dreyfus scandal, the udience with Maure told her: "I bless his work', Meanwhile, th officials responsible for Index of proscribed works had found, with che devotion to recondite thealogical literal 1 that has always placed Vatican bure ars to the right of even 1 (worth condemnation.
'concordat" with Mussolini governs Church-State relations in Italy.
The main thrust of Vatican policy in thi period was anti-communism, and it forme che Church's strategic attirades. The int mate relationship berween the Church anc omestic fabian politics was partly respo ible for chis rigidity in a period when th Church of England.
iratory for Catholic social dogma, Fra as a new puritanism'), reached a concordar in July 1933The humiliating political expropriation which followed provoked the only attack oo THE ROMAN sufficient insticutional and at the genocide DUL LIONS Dovecot. mother, Pius A Fossil? compinng the penumbra backwardness metaphor for conicience 1 to a creed, a theolog a fascist state over bade by the Carholic Church, a protest at violations of the 1933 concordat - a quarrel between partners.
idealogical autonomy to prevent in doa break. Al The end of the Thirties almost a quarter of the 55 were Catholics, There were no protest On the eve of the Scoond World War, Pius X looked out across a smouldering Europe and announced with the perplexed gloomy catastrophism so characteristic of Catholie thought — thar war was inevitable because modern man no longer heeded the word of god and and its suprete incarnaton, himself, Five years later be found it acceptable for Carbolics to participate in 'moderate" forens of representative "democracy: bicherta even Christian democracy had heen viewed as largely "erroneous This concession to modernity was timely, given the military defeat of Fascism and the growth of the mass anti-fascist"
To assert that the Church is a Tossil and leave it as that is to beg the question. The force of organised religion in many Euro an countries — Spain, Italy, Ireland orts a culturally derelict and oppressin pennot be epined see in term fuelling blindne Thi shadow on the modern world is, rather, on of those stubborn internal embarrassment ten to fool, to employ the detail pebble coent normalisation of the bourge surger democratie order, the uneasy cocsistence with fixations and myths it has formally transcended, and the dependence on such myths when the 'overheads" begin to grate. Hence the peculiar shrillness of some bourgeois anti-clericals, and perhaps the tendency to exarcise Marxism by comparing It was stated carlier that the Church hi produced a morbid soliloquy on late-modero bistory, but of course it has not been speaking withoot sceners, It has been, if the discourse it produces is sel against th background of the main, intellectual an ultural forces of the recent centuries Unfortunately a major support of the Church has been its successful populism It has succeeded in retaining the loyalty bave aystematically investigated these links The Vatican Finances, Peer Craco 1971 also demonstrates a connection with Shell Italiana, an associate of the British Shell Transport and Trading Company, Since the early 1970s, bomever, the Vatican has diversified into more anonymous securities. and has sold its controlling interest in Immobilare. Aristocratic stooges no longer serve as markers of Vatican capilal on boards of directors, bat it is sate to assumme thar caution still dierates investment in large CAESARAS the church can he as sure of its dividends as it is of an Irish Prime Minister.
In the Fifties, the Church was determined protagonist in the cold war. The Soviet Union and the 'workers republics were erased from official papa spesches becoming the Church of Silence". Catholic schools cultivated a red demonings and a martyrology which mixed genuine cases of Tereson with contal Tankay. a would Dr a mistake, however, to counterpose this fervour to the ccumcoical coclock which emerged during and after the Second Vatican Council The •tinsid experiments with worker priests in the carly part of the decade in France were abruptly terminated when the Implanted priests were dragged into struggle with the workers, but the more inteLligeot Catholic ideologists were aware of the need to break the Intransigence and political prostitution, One consideration which moved the Council was a Dew awareness that the soviet Union's exernal stance and a dessr: to achieve 'communist world domination жеге пос recognised that although a Communist leader might talk about world revolution, Ic practice he would probably settle for peaceFul coexistence. This enabled a distinction between a "false philosophy" of man and his place in the world, and the 'legitimate' Trying to fin tried so suppress, in a political warld now predominantly social democratic at is European centre and increasingly inhospi table to imperialisa elsewhere.
Anaemic as new initistives In international relations (barmony") and social SOON ECOSION TORE CES DEBEC, ANE not soley the family could provide for an individual's needs proved to be, the effectively highlighred a stillness in areas of more crucial importance to the Church': ideological coherence and populist hold: the family (the ban car contraception in 1970 and freedom of conscience (restatement of Papal infallibulity)
Catholic liberals Like Paul Jobnson who thought that the Vatican Council would become a sort OT Sona HouseD Commons, with the pope as constitutiona sovereign, encountered a Maternal figure more familiar in Catholic iconography than in the mythology of parliaments,
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE 7 July 1977 p14
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