Communism refers both to a doctrine — the atheistic materialism inherited from Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels — and to the political regimes that claimed it in the 20th century, from the Soviet Union to Mao’s China. For the Church’s social doctrine, it is not simply a debatable economic program among others: it is a comprehensive worldview of man and the world that denies God, reduces the person to a cog in the collective, abolishes private property, and makes class struggle the law of history.
That is why the Church, which also denounces the excesses of capitalism and economic liberalism, has pronounced a judgment apart against communism, of unique severity. As early as 1846, Pius IX denounced it; in 1878, Leo XIII spoke of this “deadly plague”; in 1937, Pius XI declared in Divini Redemptoris that communism is “intrinsically evil”[1]. The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes: the Church “has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated, in modern times, with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’”[2].
This condemnation does not target the poor whom communism claims to defend, nor the aspiration to justice that has often motivated it. It targets an error about man. Saint John Paul II, a direct witness to the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989, stated clearly: “The fundamental error of ‘socialism’ is anthropological in nature”[3]. To understand the Catholic rejection of communism is therefore first to understand what the Church affirms about the dignity of the human person created in the image of God.
What is Communism?
Before examining why the Church condemns it, one must honestly describe what communism claims to be. The word covers diverse realities: an ancient ideal of sharing goods, a philosophy of history developed in the 19th century, and concrete regimes that governed, in the 20th century, hundreds of millions of men.
From Evangelical Sharing to Modern Communism
The idea of sharing goods in common did not begin with Marx, nor is it inherently bad. The Acts of the Apostles describe the first Christian community in Jerusalem where “they had all things in common” and where “no one said that any of his possessions was his own”[4]. Great religious orders have lived for centuries in a voluntary community of goods, founded on freely chosen evangelical poverty. But this communion is a gift of love, embraced in freedom and ordered to God: it has nothing to do with abolition imposed by force in the name of a godless philosophy.
Modern communism is something else entirely. It arose in the 19th century, in the wake of the industrial revolution and worker misery, as a revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow the social order by abolishing property and establishing a classless society. Its founding charter is the Manifesto of the Communist Party published in London in February 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, opening with the now-famous phrase — “A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism” — and closing with the call: “Workers of the world, unite!”[5].
Marxism: Dialectical Materialism and Class Struggle
To understand communism as the Church judged it, one must grasp Marxism, its philosophical framework. Three theses form its core.
Materialism: Only Matter Exists
The first thesis is materialism. For Marx, who takes up Hegel’s philosophy by inverting it — matter, and not Spirit, becoming the principle of everything — nothing exists but matter and its transformations; there is no God, no soul, no autonomous spirit. Thought, religion, law, and morality are only reflections of economic conditions: ideas form, he says, a “superstructure” determined by the infrastructure, that is, by material production. Pius XI precisely summarized this doctrine in Divini Redemptoris:
“This doctrine teaches that there is only one reality, matter, with its blind forces […]. In such a doctrine, it is obvious, there is no place for the idea of God.”[6]
— Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937
Dialectics: History as Conflict
The second thesis is dialectics applied to history. For Marxism, human history is the story of a perpetual struggle between social classes with opposing interests: masters and slaves, lords and serfs, bourgeoisie and proletariat. This struggle is not a regrettable accident but the very engine of historical progress, which must inevitably lead to the victory of the proletariat, the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and then to a classless, stateless society. Class struggle is thus elevated to a scientific law of history.
Collectivism: Abolishing Private Property
The third thesis is collectivism: the root of all alienation is private ownership of the means of production. Abolishing it — through revolution and then imposed collectivization — would liberate man. “Communists can summarize their theory in this single phrase: abolition of private property,” write Marx and Engels[7].
Communism and Socialism: What’s the Difference?
Communism and socialism are often confused, and the founders of Marxism sometimes used the two words interchangeably. Yet the magisterium has maintained a useful distinction. Socialism designates a broader family of doctrines aiming at collectivization or strong social control of the economy; some of its variants, moderate and reformist, renounce revolutionary violence and militant atheism. Communism is the radical, revolutionary, and resolutely atheistic form: it seeks the complete abolition of property, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the elimination of religion.
Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno (1931), precisely distinguishes the two: he describes a “mitigated” socialism that sometimes softens to the point of approaching just Christian demands, but maintains that even in a softened form, socialism remains incompatible with Catholic doctrine because it conceives human society “in a way profoundly foreign to Christian truth”[8]. This article specifically addresses the communist form; for the critique of socialism as such, see the dedicated article.
Communist Regimes of the 20th Century
The doctrine became state power with the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 in Russia, led by Lenin, followed by the establishment of the Soviet Union (1922)[9]. Over the century, communist regimes were established in Eastern Europe after 1945, in China (1949) under Mao Zedong, in North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Cambodia, and elsewhere. All implemented, to varying degrees, the three Marxist theses: single party, forced collectivization, state atheism, and persecution of religions. It is this concrete implementation — and not only the theory — that confirmed to the Church the gravity of the communist error[10].
Why Did the Church Condemn Communism?
One objection recurs constantly: the Church supposedly condemned communism only to defend the rich and its own property. This is a misunderstanding. The heart of the disagreement is not economic but anthropological and theological: communism rests on a false conception of God, man, and society. Here are the five roots of the condemnation.
Materialist Atheism: Denying God Is to Deform Man
The first and deepest reason is atheism. Communism is not neutral regarding religion: it is, by principle, anti-religious. Marx considered religion a consoling illusion serving oppression — “the opium of the people” — destined to disappear with class society. Pius XI cites this formula to show the consequence: communism “is by its nature anti-religious and regards religion as ‘the opium of the people’”[11].
For the Church, denying God is not a mere philosophical detail: it undermines the very foundation of human dignity. If man is only a product of matter, he loses his sacred value as the image of God and his eternity. Saint John Paul II traces this root:
“If one then asks where this erroneous conception of the nature of the person originates […], one must answer that the primary cause is atheism. […] The denial of God deprives the person of his roots and consequently leads to reorganizing the social order without regard for the dignity and responsibility of the person.”[12] — Saint John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991
Denial of the Person and the Spiritual Soul
From materialist atheism flows the second error: the dissolution of the person. Where the Gospel sees in every man a unique subject, endowed with an immortal spiritual soul, free and responsible before God, communism sees only an element of the collective, a function of the social class. The person is subordinated to the group, the state, the promised radiant future. This is the central analysis of Saint John Paul II:
“The fundamental error of ‘socialism’ is anthropological in nature. Indeed, it considers the individual as a mere element, a molecule of the social organism […]. Man is thus reduced to a set of social relations, and it is then that the concept of the person as an autonomous subject of moral decision disappears.”[13] — Saint John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991
This denial has terrible practical consequences: if the individual is only a means in the service of History, his sacrifice in the name of collective progress becomes justifiable. The inviolable dignity of the person — the first principle of social doctrine — is here radically denied.
Abolition of Private Property
The third root concerns private property. Communism seeks to abolish it entirely; the Church teaches instead that a natural right to property belongs to the person and family, as a condition of freedom and responsibility. Pius XI describes communist doctrine without restraint:
“No right of property is granted to individuals over natural resources or over the means of production […]. This is precisely why this kind of private property must be radically destroyed.”[14] — Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937
As early as Rerum Novarum (1891), Leo XIII had refuted the socialist remedy: to claim to cure worker misery by suppressing private property is “sovereignly unjust” and would harm workers themselves, who would be deprived of the freedom to dispose of their wages and any hope of improving their condition[15]. The Church does not defend absolute and selfish property, however: she subordinates it to the universal destination of goods, according to which the goods of creation are destined for all. The full development of this point is found in dedicated articles.
Class Struggle Elevated to a Law of History
The fourth error is the class struggle posited as a permanent principle. The Church recognizes the real existence of social conflicts and the legitimacy of defending workers’ rights — she did so forcefully from Rerum Novarum onward. But she refuses to make antagonism and hatred the structural law of society. Where Marxism seeks to set one class against another until total victory[16], social doctrine advocates the pursuit of the common good, justice, and solidarity among all members of the social body. Concord, not permanent civil war, is the Christian path.
Totalitarian Collectivism
The fifth root is the totalitarian drift. By concentrating in the hands of the state all property, all the economy, and all power, and by denying the autonomy of persons and intermediate bodies (families, associations, Churches: everything standing between the individual and the State), communism prepares a power without counterbalance[17]. It violates the principle of subsidiarity and tends, by its very logic, toward totalitarianism. The experience of the 20th century tragically confirmed this: all communist regimes were single-party regimes, with political police and total control of social and religious life.
Objection: Are the Crimes the Work of Men, Not of the Doctrine?
The strongest objection to this judgment remains. It runs: Marx never governed; the crimes — the Red Terror, the Gulag, organized famines, purges — are the work of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, who betrayed or distorted Marx’s thought. Condemning the doctrine for the crimes of the regimes would therefore be unjust: a Marxism faithful to itself, democratic and humanist, would remain possible. The objection deserves to be taken seriously: not all Marxists were executioners, and not all crimes committed under a red flag have the same cause.
But the Church answers that the error lies in the very principles, not only in those who carried them out. That is the meaning of Pius XI’s “intrinsically perverse”: the evil is not an accident along the way; it is inscribed in a doctrine that denies God, dissolves the person into the collective, and makes class violence the engine of history[18]. John Paul II adds that this anthropological error is common to all the regimes that apply the doctrine, whoever their leaders: once man is reduced to a “molecule of the social organism,” his sacrifice in the name of History becomes justifiable, in Moscow as in Beijing[19]. History has decided: among the Marxist regimes that held power durably in the 20th century and are documented by historians — from the USSR to Maoist China, from Eastern Europe to Khmer Rouge Cambodia — none functioned durably without the single party, the political police, and religious persecution[20] — because these were not deviations, but consequences.
Two Centuries of Magisterial Condemnations
The Catholic rejection of communism is neither late nor improvised: it forms a continuous magisterial line since the mid-19th century. Here is its progression.
Pius IX and the Syllabus: The First Alarms
The very first papal condemnation of communism is the work of Pius IX, at the beginning of his pontificate. In the encyclical Qui Pluribus of November 9, 1846, he denounces “this harmful doctrine called communism, radically contrary to natural law itself” — a doctrine which, if imposed, would completely overturn rights, property, and society as a whole[21]. The Syllabus of 1864 (the catalogue of modern errors, annexed to the encyclical Quanta Cura) then lists socialism and communism among the errors condemned by the Holy See[22].
Leo XIII: The “Deadly Plague” and Rerum Novarum
Leo XIII devotes to the subject one of his first social interventions, Quod Apostolici Muneris, of December 28, 1878 — his very first encyclical, Inscrutabili Dei consilio, dated April 21, 1878, Rerum Novarum (1891) being commonly regarded as his first great social encyclical. There he denounces the sect of men who call themselves “socialists, communists, and nihilists” as faces of the same error, calling this error a deadly plague:
“This deadly plague which slips through the innermost members of human society and leads it to its ruin.”[23] — Leo XIII, Quod Apostolici Muneris, December 28, 1878
Thirteen years later, in the great charter of social doctrine, Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891), he develops the positive argument: against the collectivist remedy, he defends private property, the just wage, the right of association, and harmony between classes. By addressing the worker question, the Church cuts the ground from under communism by showing that one can stand with the poor without destroying freedom or denying God.
Pius XI: Communism “Intrinsically Perverse”
The peak of condemnation is the encyclical Divini Redemptoris, published by Pius XI on March 19, 1937, amid the rise of totalitarianisms and while the Spanish Civil War bloodies Europe. The pope analyzes “Bolshevik and atheistic communism”, denounces its ravages, and issues the most solemn sentence:
“Communism is intrinsically perverse, and no collaboration with it can be admitted on any ground by anyone who wishes to save Christian civilization.”[24] — Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937
The expression “intrinsically perverse” is strong: it means that the evil is not in some accidental abuse of communism, but in its very principles. Six years earlier, Quadragesimo Anno (1931) had already described this communism which pursues, “not secretly or by indirect means, but openly, in broad daylight and by all means, even the most violent”, a dual objective: “an implacable class struggle and the complete disappearance of private property”[25].
Pius XII and the 1949 Decree
After World War II, the expansion of communism in Eastern Europe and the open persecution of the Church — arrest of Cardinal Mindszenty in Hungary, rigged trials, closure of seminaries — led Pius XII to an exceptional canonical measure. The Holy Office Decree (the Roman dicastery guardian of doctrine) of July 1, 1949 answered four precise questions: Catholics were forbidden to join the communist party or support it, to publish, disseminate, or even read its writings, and those who did so could not be admitted to the sacraments. The fourth answer was the most serious: it declared apostates — that is, renegades of the faith — the faithful concerned:
“The faithful who profess the materialist and anti-Christian doctrine of the communists […] incur automatic excommunication specially reserved to the Holy See,” as apostates from the faith.[26] — Holy Office Decree, July 1, 1949
This proper penalty of the decree is no longer in force today: the 1983 Code of Canon Law abrogated the penal laws of the Apostolic See not retained in the Code (can. 6, §1, 3°); professing a materialist and atheist doctrine now falls under apostasy, punished by latae sententiae excommunication not reserved (can. 1364, §1).
Here is, gathered, the chronology of this magisterial line:
- November 9, 1846Pius IX — Qui Pluribus
First papal condemnation: communism, “harmful doctrine,” declared “radically contrary to natural law itself.”
- December 8, 1864Pius IX — Syllabus
Communism and socialism listed among modern errors condemned.
- December 28, 1878Leo XIII — Quod Apostolici Muneris
The sect of “socialists, communists, and nihilists” denounced as the same “deadly plague.”
- May 15, 1891Leo XIII — Rerum Novarum
Refutation of collectivist remedy and positive foundation of social doctrine: property, just wage, harmony.
- May 15, 1931Pius XI — Quadragesimo Anno
Communism described as advocating class struggle and abolition of property “by all means, even the most violent.”
- March 19, 1937Pius XI — Divini Redemptoris
Communism declared “intrinsically perverse”; all collaboration excluded for those wishing to save Christian civilization.
- July 1, 1949Pius XII — Holy Office Decree
Excommunication of faithful who professed communist doctrine, amid persecution of the Church in the East (proper penalty abrogated in 1983).
- May 1, 1991John Paul II — Centesimus Annus
After the fall of the Wall, diagnosis of an error “anthropological in character” that caused communism’s collapse.
Communism Put to the Test: Persecution
A doctrine is also judged by its fruits. The 20th century provided a large-scale experience of communism in power, and the human toll as well as the fate reserved for the Church tragically confirmed the seriousness of the magisterial diagnosis.
The "Black Book": A Human Toll
Published in 1997 under the direction of historian Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism attempted a first global assessment of the victims of communist regimes — through executions, deportations, organized famines (such as the Great Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 or the Chinese Great Leap Forward), and forced labor[27]. Courtois’s introduction advances a total on the order of a hundred million deaths; the preface by historian Martin Malia to the American edition (1999) takes up the estimated total of the contributors, between 85 and 100 million. These figures were contested as early as 1997 by two of the co-authors themselves, Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, who derived from their studies a range of 65 to 93 million. The exact figures remain debated among historians, but the unprecedented order of magnitude illustrates where an ideology that entirely subordinates the person to the collective and to History leads.
The Persecuted Church: From Mexico to China
Wherever it took hold, communism sought to eradicate or enslave the Church, in accordance with its principle atheism — including through a clandestine Church that refused to submit. Some milestones:
- In Soviet Russia, from the 1920s-1930s: church closures, execution of priests and bishops, systematic persecution of believers[28].
- In Mexico, the anti-clerical persecution of the revolutionary regime of the 1920s (Calles laws, 1926) — an anti-clerical but not communist State in the strict sense, the Mexican Communist Party itself being banned — sparked the Cristero War (1926-1929) and produced many martyrs, such as the Blessed priest Miguel Pro, executed in 1927[29].
- In Spain, during the civil war (1936-1939), Marxist and anarchist-inspired revolutionary terror massacred thousands of priests, religious, and faithful; more than 2,200 Spanish martyrs of the 20th century have since been beatified, 11 of them canonized[30].
- In Eastern Europe after 1945: imprisonment or internment of figures such as Cardinal Mindszenty (Hungary, arrested in 1948), Archbishop Stepinac (Croatia, sentenced in 1946), Archbishop Beran (Prague, detained from 1949 to 1963 then exiled, created cardinal only in 1965), and Cardinal Wyszyński (Poland, interned from 1953 to 1956)[31].
- In China: bringing the Church to heel through the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, controlled by the Party, and persecution of the faithful attached to Rome; the provisional agreement between the Holy See and China on the appointment of bishops (September 22, 2018, extended on October 22, 2024 for four years): appointments made under this agreement are in communion with the pope, while restrictions persist[32].
The Martyrs of the 20th Century
Saint John Paul II, who had experienced the Polish communist regime firsthand, insisted that the great Jubilee of the year 2000 commemorate the martyrs of the 20th century: at the ecumenical commemoration of the witnesses of faith at the Colosseum, on May 7, 2000, he recalled that this century had counted, perhaps even more than the beginnings of Christianity, a multitude of witnesses to the faith amid often heroic sufferings — many having refused to bow to the idols of the century: communism, Nazism, idolatry of the State or of race[33]. Many thus fell under communist regimes. Their witness gives flesh to the doctrinal condemnation: they preferred to die rather than deny Christ before an ideology that demanded their whole soul. This shed blood is, paradoxically, one of the most eloquent responses to communism’s claim to make religion unnecessary.
The Church Facing the Communist World: Condemning Error, Loving Persons
Doctrinal firmness has never meant, for the popes, contempt for persons nor refusal of prudent dialogue. The magisterium has maintained a delicate but decisive distinction between error, which must be rejected, and men, who must be loved and sought to be won over.
Distinguishing Doctrine and Movements
John XXIII formulated this discernment in Pacem in Terris (1963). He distinguishes false philosophical doctrines, which once established do not change, from concrete historical movements born from these doctrines, which can evolve, change, and sometimes contain positive elements:
“One cannot identify false philosophical theories about the nature, origin, and purpose of the world and man with historical movements founded for an economic, social, cultural, or political purpose.”[34] — Saint John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, April 11, 1963
This distinction in no way diminishes the condemnation of atheistic doctrine; it opens the possibility of prudent contacts and collaboration on concrete points (peace, disarmament, justice), where Christians and men of good will can act together without endorsing the ideology.
Gaudium et Spes and Systematic Atheism
The Second Vatican Council, in the constitution Gaudium et Spes (1965), treats at length the modern atheism, analyzing “systematic” atheism — that which expects man’s liberation above all from his economic and social liberation, and sees religion as an obstacle. The Council rejects it as contrary to reason and human dignity, while inviting Christians to examine the share of responsibility they bear when deficient witness may have pushed some to unbelief[35]. The conciliar method is consistent: refute error, understand its causes, and extend the hand to the atheist as a brother to love.
The Marxist Temptation Among Christians
In the 1960s-1970s, part of the Catholic world was tempted to borrow from Marxism its tools of social analysis, judged effective for denouncing injustice. Paul VI, in Octogesima Adveniens (1971), warned: it would be “illusory and dangerous” to forget the intimate link uniting Marxism as analysis and Marxism as totalitarian ideology; one does not adopt without risk an instrument forged by a philosophy that denies God and the person[36].
This is the issue in debates on liberation theology in Latin America. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the instruction Libertatis Nuntius (1984), distinguishes the authentic option for the poor — fully evangelical — from the uncritical borrowing of Marxist analysis (class struggle, materialism), which perverts this option by subjecting it to an atheistic ideology[37]. Two years later, Libertatis Conscientia (1986) develops the positive side: true Christian liberation is integral, spiritual as well as social.
1989: The Fall and Its Diagnosis
The collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989—symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall—and the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 seemed to vindicate the Church. But Saint John Paul II refrained from any triumphalism: he sought to understand the causes in order to draw lessons.
Centesimus Annus: The Anthropological Root of the Failure
In Centesimus Annus (1991), Saint John Paul II identifies several causes for the fall: the economic inefficiency of the system—which he interprets less as a technical problem than as the consequence of the violation of human rights—but above all a spiritual void:
“The true cause of these novelties is the spiritual void caused by atheism, which left the younger generations deprived of guidance.”[38] — Saint John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991
In other words, communism collapsed primarily because it was mistaken about man. By denying God, freedom, and transcendence, it built a system that ultimately could neither nourish nor sustain human beings.
Neither Collectivism nor Soulless Capitalism
The fall of communism does not mean, for the Church, the automatic victory of liberal capitalism. Saint John Paul II had already denounced, in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987), the two blocs—Marxist collectivism in the East and liberal capitalism in the West—as two imperfect conceptions and two possible “imperialisms”[39]. And the Catechism holds both ends:
“The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated, in modern times, with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism.’ Moreover, she has rejected, in the practice of ‘capitalism,’ individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the market over human labor.”[40] — Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2425
The rejection of communism is therefore not an endorsement of unrestrained liberalism: the Church’s social doctrine is not a “third way” between liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism — it “constitutes a category of its own,” belonging to moral theology[41]. For the limits of the other bloc, see the articles on capitalism and economic liberalism.
What Communism Sought, What the Gospel Truly Offers
To conclude rightly, one must acknowledge what was real in the communist grievance. Communism was born from a genuine scandal: the worker misery of the 19th century, exploitation, the glaring gap between the opulence of a few and the distress of the many. The aspiration to equality and justice that often motivated it is, in itself, legitimate and even evangelical. The error is not in the indignation at injustice; it lies in the remedy—atheism, violence, the denial of the person—that made things worse than the evil.
To this expectation, the Gospel responds differently, and better. Where communism promises a fraternity without a Father, the Church proclaims a fraternity rooted in God: men are brothers because they share the same Father. Where it preaches class hatred, Christ preaches love, even for enemies. Where it defers happiness to an always postponed earthly future, the Gospel offers now the dignity of being a child of God and the hope of eternal life. Concern for the poor, which Marxism confiscated, is first and foremost Christian:
“Truly I tell you, whenever you did it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it for me.”[42] — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 25:40
The Catholic response to the social question is not a lukewarm compromise between two ideologies, but a positive vision: the dignity of every person, the universal destination of goods, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity. It is by fully living this doctrine—and the charity that crowns it—that Christians truly respond to the cry for justice that communism so cruelly disappointed.
For further reading
- The Clandestine Church under Communism (1917-1991) — the life and martyrdom of Catholics who remained faithful to Rome under persecution.
- Private Property According to the Church — the natural right that communism seeks to abolish, and its limits.
- The Universal Destination of Goods — the principle that orders property for the good of all.
- Totalitarianism — the political drift toward which communist collectivism tends.
- Socialism and Its Limits — the doctrinal family of which communism is the radical form.
- Capitalism and Its Limits and Economic Liberalism — the other bloc, also criticized by the Church.
- The Dignity of the Human Person, The Common Good, Subsidiarity and Solidarity — the four permanent principles of social doctrine.
Notes and References
Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris (on atheistic communism), March 19, 1937, no. 58, official French text on vatican.va: “Communism is intrinsically evil, and no collaboration with it can be admitted on any ground by anyone who wishes to save Christian civilization.”
1 18 24Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2425, official text on vatican.va: “The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated, in modern times, with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism.’ Moreover, she has rejected, in the practice of ‘capitalism,’ individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the market over human labor […].”
2 40Saint John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991, no. 13, official French text on vatican.va: “the fundamental error of ‘socialism’ is anthropological in character. Indeed, it considers the individual as a mere element, a molecule of the social organism […]. Man is thus reduced to a set of social relations, and it is then that the concept of the person as an autonomous subject of moral decision disappears […].”
3 13 19Acts of the Apostles 4:32, official liturgical translation (AELF): “The multitude of those who had become believers was of one heart and one soul; and no one said that any of the things they possessed was his own, but they had everything in common.” Cf. Acts 2:44-45.
4Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, original edition, London, February 1848: opening phrase of Chapter I (“A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of communism”) and final watchword of Chapter IV (“Workers of the world, unite!”). French translation: current version reproduced by Marxists Internet Archive.
5Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, no. 9, on the evolutionary and dialectical materialism of communism: “There exists only one reality, matter, with its blind forces […]. In such a doctrine, it is obvious, there is no place for the idea of God.”
6Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, original edition, London, February 1848, Chapter II (“Proletarians and Communists”). German text: “In diesem Sinn können die Kommunisten ihre Theorie in dem einen Ausdruck: Aufhebung des Privateigentums, zusammenfassen.” French translation (current version reproduced by Marxists Internet Archive): “In this sense, communists can summarize their theory in this single formula: abolition of private property.”
7Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931: socialism, even “mitigated,” “conceives human society in a way profoundly foreign to Christian truth,” and “Religious socialism, Christian socialism: these are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist” (Latin: Socialismus religiosus, socialismus christianus pugnantia dicunt: nemo potest simul catholicus probus esse et veri nominis socialista). Current French translation (the one used in our neighboring articles; vatican.va offers no French version — verified October 4, 2026: the /fr/ page exists but its body is empty, only the English, Spanish, Italian, Latin, and Portuguese versions being offered there): nos. 126 and 128, i.e. nos. 117-118 and 120 of the English and Italian versions on vatican.va (verified October 4, 2026: nos. 112 and 120 checked word for word in English and Italian, no. 117-118 checked in English).
8October 1917 Revolution and founding of the USSR in 1922: universally documented milestones of 20th-century history; on the religious persecution that followed in Russia, see Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, no. 19 (official French text on vatican.va: “Where communism has been able to assert itself and dominate […], it has striven by every means to destroy […] Christian civilization and the Christian religion even in their foundations”).
9Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931: once in power, communism deploys measureless cruelty and inhumanity there (no. 112 of the English and Italian numbering on vatican.va, no. 120 of the current French translation; see note qa-communisme).
10Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, no. 22, official French text on vatican.va: communism “is by its nature anti-religious and regards religion as ‘the opium of the people.’”
11Saint John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991, no. 13, official French text on vatican.va: “If one then asks where this erroneous conception of the nature of the human person and of the personality of society arises, one must answer that the primary cause is atheism. […] The denial of God deprives the person of his roots and, consequently, incites the reorganization of social order without regard for the dignity and responsibility of the person.”
12Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, no. 10, on the abolition of private property, official French text on vatican.va: “No right of property is granted to individuals over natural resources or over the means of production, since they are the origin of other goods, and their possession would entail the domination of one man over another. This is precisely why this kind of private property must be radically destroyed […].”
14Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931, on class struggle as the stated objective of communism (see note qa-communisme).
16Saint John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991, no. 13: the denial of the person as an autonomous subject of moral decision (see note ca-13) grounds the critique of collectivism, which entirely subordinates the good of each person to the functioning of the economic and social mechanism.
17By country, in Stéphane Courtois (ed.), Le Livre noir du communisme. Crimes, terreur, répression, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1997 (846 p.): USSR — Nicolas Werth, part 1, “Un État contre son peuple,” pp. 41-295 of the original edition (pp. 45-313 of the Bouquins reissue, 1998); Eastern Europe — Andrzej Paczkowski, Poland section, pp. 397-428, and Karel Bartošek, Central and South-Eastern Europe section (part 3); Maoist China — Jean-Louis Margolin, chap. “Chine : une longue marche dans la nuit” (pp. 641-772 of the Pocket reissue); Khmer Rouge Cambodia — J.-L. Margolin, Cambodia section (American edition Harvard University Press, 1999, p. 633).
20Blessed Pius IX, Qui Pluribus, November 9, 1846. French wording taken from Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, no. 4, official French text on vatican.va, which quotes this passage: “this harmful doctrine called communism, radically contrary to natural law itself; once admitted, such a doctrine would be the complete ruin of all rights, institutions, property, and human society itself.” Official Italian text on vatican.va — the only language offered online for this document (verified October 4, 2026): “la nefanda dottrina del Comunismo, come dicono, massimamente avversa allo stesso diritto naturale”; current English translation (papalencyclicals.net, §16, just before §17): “the unspeakable doctrine of Communism, as it is called, a doctrine most opposed to the very natural law.” Latin text not posted online by vatican.va; in the Denzinger-Hünermann repertoires consulted, no number collects this passage.
21Blessed Pius IX, Syllabus annexed to the encyclical Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, section IV (“Socialism, communism, secret societies, biblical societies, clerical-liberal societies”). This section does not formulate its own numbered proposition: it refers to condemnations already pronounced in Qui Pluribus (1846), the allocution Quibus Quantisque (1849), Noscitis et Nobiscum (1849), the allocution Singulari Quadam (1854), and Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (1863).
22Leo XIII, Quod Apostolici Muneris, December 28, 1878, French text on vatican.va: “From the very beginning of Our Pontificate, We have not neglected […] to point out this deadly plague which slips through the innermost members of human society and leads it to its ruin.” There the pope denounces “the sect of those men who call themselves variously […] socialists, communists, and nihilists” (men, not abstract doctrines). Leo XIII’s first encyclical: Inscrutabili Dei consilio, April 21, 1878; Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891) is commonly regarded as his first great social encyclical.
23Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931, on communism which pursues, “not secretly or by indirect means, but openly, publicly and by all means, even the most violent,” “an implacable class struggle and the complete disappearance of private property” (Latin: acerrimam inter classes luctationem, plenamque dominii privati exstinctionem). Current French translation (the one used in our neighboring articles; vatican.va offers no French version — see note qa-120): no. 120, i.e. no. 112 of the English and Italian versions on vatican.va (passage checked word for word in the English version on October 4, 2026).
25Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, Decree against Communism (Decretum contra communismum), given in Rome July 1, 1949 (decision of June 28, approved by Pius XII on June 30), published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis (AAS 41, 1949, p. 334). Latin text of the four questions and answers: “1. utrum licitum sit partibus communistarum nomen dare vel eisdem favorem praestare ; 2. utrum licitum sit edere, propagare vel legere libros, periodica, diaria vel folia, quae doctrinae vel actioni communistarum patrocinantur, vel in eis scribere ; 3. utrum christifideles, qui actus de quibus in nn. 1 et 2 scienter et libere posuerint, ad Sacramenta admitti possint ; 4. utrum christifideles, qui communistarum doctrinam materialisticam et antichristianam profitentur, et in primis qui eam defendunt vel propagant, ipso facto, tamquam apostatae a fide catholica, incurrant in excommunicationem speciali modo Sedi Apostolicae reservatam. Ad 1. Negative […] ; Ad 2. Negative […] ; Ad 3. Negative […] ; Ad 4. Affirmative.” (French translation: that of the article.) Current status: this proper penalty is no longer in force — 1983 Code of Canon Law, can. 6, §1, 3° (abrogation of the penal laws of the Apostolic See not retained in the Code); apostasy falls under can. 1364, §1 (latae sententiae excommunication not reserved).
26Stéphane Courtois (ed.), Le Livre noir du communisme. Crimes, terreur, répression, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1997: in his introduction, Courtois advances a total on the order of a hundred million deaths. The 85-to-100-million range takes up the estimated total of the contributors, cited by historian Martin Malia in his preface to the American edition (Harvard University Press, 1999). Nicolas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin, co-authors of the work, contested this figure in their column “Communisme : retour à l’histoire” (Le Monde, November 14, 1997), deriving from their studies a range of 65 to 93 million.
27On the persecution in Soviet Russia, see Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, no. 19, official French text on vatican.va: “Bishops and priests were banished, sentenced to forced labor, shot and put to death in an inhuman manner; mere laypeople, for having defended religion, were suspected, mistreated, prosecuted, and dragged to prison and before the courts.” (No. 20 likewise describes the “horrors of communism in Spain.”)
28Calles Laws (1926) and Cristero War (1926-1929); Blessed Miguel Pro, Jesuit priest executed in Mexico City in 1927 (beatified by John Paul II in 1988). On the non-communist character of the regime: revolutionary anti-clerical State born of the 1917 Constitution; the Mexican Communist Party, founded in 1919, had itself been outlawed in 1925 by the Calles government (history thesis: Alejandra Díaz-Pizarro Perdomo, Everything is School: Exchanges Between the Mexican Communist Party and Cardenista Socialist Education, 1934-1940, Department of History, Columbia University, April 2025, after Manuel Márquez Fuentes and Octavio Rodríguez Araujo, El Partido Comunista Mexicano (en el período de la Internacional Comunista, 1919-1943), 2nd ed., Ediciones El Caballito, Mexico, 1981: “the party had been illegal since 1925”). The parallel with persecuting communism rests on Pius XI himself, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, no. 19: “Where communism has been able to assert itself and dominate — and here We think with particular paternal affection of the peoples of Russia and Mexico —, it has striven by every means to destroy […] Christian civilization and the Christian religion even in their foundations.”
29Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Figures: after the beatification of 124 martyrs of Jaén on December 13, 2025 (109 priests, 14 laypeople, one Poor Clare), the number of 20th-century Spanish martyrs recognized by the Church stands at 2,254, 11 of them canonized (Nicolás de Cárdenas, ACI Prensa/CNA via the National Catholic Register, December 12, 2025).
30Cardinal József Mindszenty, Archbishop of Esztergom, arrested December 26, 1948 and sentenced in 1949; Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac of Zagreb, sentenced to sixteen years in prison in October 1946 (created cardinal in 1952); Archbishop Josef Beran of Prague, detained by the communist regime from 1949 to 1963 then exiled to Rome in February 1965, created cardinal by Paul VI on February 22, 1965; Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Primate of Poland, interned from 1953 to 1956. Biographical notices: The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church (ed. S. Miranda), verified October 4, 2026 — Mindszenty: https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1946.htm#Mindszenty (sentenced to life imprisonment by the communist regime, March 1949; on the arrest after the 1948 takeover, see also EWTN, https://ewtn.co.uk/article-hungarian-cardinal-tortured-by-communists-remembered-50-years-after-his-death/) ; Stepinac: https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1953.htm#Stepinac (arrested in September 1946, sentenced to sixteen years in prison on October 11, 1946) ; Wyszyński: https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1953.htm#Wyszynski (imprisoned by the regime, 1953-October 26, 1956) ; Beran: https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios1965.htm#Beran (imprisoned 1949-1963).
31Provisional agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China on the appointment of bishops, signed September 22, 2018 then extended every two years, and on October 22, 2024 for four years (until 2028; Holy See Press Office bulletins). Since then bishops have been appointed in communion with Pope Leo XIV under this agreement: CNA dispatch “Pope Confirms Second Chinese Bishop in a Week Under Vatican-Beijing Agreement,” Vatican, July 30, 2026 (ordination of Msgr. Francis Xavier Duan Yongkun as coadjutor bishop of Bameng, appointed by Leo XIV on June 15). URL: https://www.ncregister.com/cna/pope-leo-china-bishop-vatican. On persistent restrictions: 2025 USCIRF Annual Report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2025 annual report), which recommends designating China again among the “countries of particular concern” and documents notably the detention and enforced disappearance of clandestine Catholic clergy refusing the official organization. URL: https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2025-03/2025%20USCIRF%20Annual%20Report.pdf.
32Saint John Paul II, ecumenical commemoration of the 20th-century witnesses of faith, Colosseum, May 7, 2000 (Great Jubilee event; the passage above is a paraphrase, the French page of the homily having been unable to be re-verified word for word on vatican.va in session). Verified magisterial reference point: Tertio Millennio Adveniente, November 10, 1994, no. 37, official French text on vatican.va (verified in session): “At the end of the second millennium, the Church has once again become a Church of martyrs” — this no. 37 does not use the formula “century of martyrs.”
33Saint John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, April 11, 1963, no. 159: distinction between “false philosophical theories about the nature, origin, and purpose of the world and man” and the “historical movements” born of these doctrines, which can evolve and contain positive and worthy elements. Official text on vatican.va.
34Second Vatican Council, pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965, nos. 19-21, on the forms and roots of modern atheism, the “systematic” atheism which awaits man’s liberation from his sole economic and social emancipation, and the Church’s rejection of atheism, joined with an examination of believers’ responsibility.
35Saint Paul VI, apostolic letter Octogesima Adveniens, May 14, 1971, no. 34 (official French text on vatican.va): “It would be illusory and dangerous to forget the intimate link that [radically unites the various aspects of Marxism], to accept elements of Marxist analysis without recognizing their relation to ideology, to enter into the practice of class struggle […] while neglecting to perceive the type of totalitarian and violent society to which this process leads.”
36Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, instruction Libertatis Nuntius on some aspects of “liberation theology,” August 6, 1984: critique of uncritical borrowing from Marxist analysis (class struggle, materialism) while reaffirming the authentic option for the poor. Completed by Libertatis Conscientia, March 22, 1986.
37Saint John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991, no. 24, official French text on vatican.va: “As a second factor of crisis, there is certainly the inefficiency of the economic system, which must not be regarded merely as a technical problem but rather as a consequence of the violation of human rights to initiative, to property, and to freedom in the economic sphere. […] The true cause of these novelties is the spiritual void caused by atheism, which has left the younger generations bereft of guidance […].” (At no. 23, the decisive factor of the fall is “the violation of the rights of labor,” illustrated by the Polish Solidarity movements.)
38Saint John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, December 30, 1987, nos. 20-21: critique of the “two blocs”—Marxist collectivism in the East and liberal capitalism in the West—and of the tendency toward “imperialism” or “neo-colonialism” that accompanies them on both sides. Official text on vatican.va.
39Saint John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, December 30, 1987, no. 41, official French text on vatican.va: “The Church’s social doctrine is not a ‘third way’ between liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism, nor another possibility among less radically marked solutions: it constitutes a category of its own. […] it does not belong to the domain of ideology but to that of theology and particularly of moral theology.”
41Gospel according to Saint Matthew 25:40, official liturgical translation (AELF), discourse on the Last Judgment: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
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