So I overheard one person I know telling another person I know that “socialism and communism are evil and the church is very clear on that” (referring to the catholic church). And I’m trying to channel my burning frustration about it into asking what people know about communism and how it has interacted with religion more generally, but also catholicism especially, now or historically. I super hard doubt what this person said was even remotely correct, but I could believe that the catholic church takes a wishy washy fence-sitting stance because it tends to on a number of things.

At any rate, it’s something I should know better because I do have catholic people in my life and so sometimes there may be a need to talk to them about these things through the framing of religion to get past the “communism is purely atheistic” type thinking.

Answers from your own knowledge or resources that go into it are both welcomed. I don’t really know how to approach looking for it on my own in this instance because a lot of western religious material is probably influenced by colonizer thinking, or in the US, influenced by red scare nonsense.

  • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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    14 days ago

    The basic policy the Party has adopted toward the religious question is that of respect for and protection of the freedom of religious belief. This is a long-term policy, one which must be continually carried out until that future time when religion will itself disappear. What do we mean by freedom of religious belief? We mean that every citizen has the freedom to believe in religion and also the freedom not to believe in religion. He or she has also the freedom to believe in this religion or that religion. Within a particular religion, he or she has the freedom to believe in this sect or that sect. A person who was previously a non-believer has the freedom to become a religious believer, and one who has been a religious believer has the freedom to become a non-believer. We Communists are atheists and must unremittingly propagate atheism. Yet at the same time we must understand that it will be fruitless and extremely harmful to use simple coercion in dealing with the people’s ideological and spiritual questions — and this includes religious questions

    https://redsails.org/on-the-question-of-religion/