During WWII it is said that those who survived the Nazi Concentration Camps were the Communists and those whose religious faith was unshakable. Today the new Catholic Pope Benedict XVI made his first papal encyclical declaring that God is Love, God is Solidarity. So in that light I thought it a good idea to compare the idea of love of social love and solidarity, between these two ideologies Communism and Catholicism. Between Che Guevera and Pope Benedict.
Che Guevera
Socialism and the New Man
The great multitudes continue to develop; the new ideas continue to attain their proper force within society; the material possibilities for the full development of all members of society make the task much more fruitful. The present is a time for struggle; the future is ours.
Our task is to prevent the present generation, torn asunder by its conflicts, from becoming perverted and from perverting new generations. We must not bring into being either docile servant of official thought or scholarship students who live at the expense of the state— practising "freedom." Already there are revolutionaries coming who will sing the song of the new man in the true voice of the people. This is a process, which takes time.
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. The leaders of the revolution have children just beginning to talk, who are not learning to call their fathers by name; wives, from whom they have to be separated as part of the general sacrifice of their lives to bring the revolution to its fulfilment; the circle of their friends is limited strictly to the number of fellow revolutionists. There is no life outside of the revolution.
In these circumstances one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.
Of course there are dangers in the present situation, and not only that of dogmatism, not only that of weakening the ties with the masses midway in the great task. There is also the danger of weaknesses. If a man thinks that dedicating his entire life to the revolution means, that in return he should not have such worries as that his son lacks certain things, or that his children's shoes are worn out, or that his family lacks some necessity, then he is entering into rationalisations which open his mind to infection by the seeds of future corruption.
In our case we have maintained that our children should have or should go without those things that the children of the average man have or go without, and that our families should understand this and strive to uphold this standard. The revolution is made through man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit day by day.
An unexpected letter of love from the Pope to his church
The open papal letter to the church is titled Deus Caritas Est -- God is love. Before its publication, the Pope said his intention was "to show the concept of love in its different dimensions. I hope it might illuminate and help our Christian life."
In particular his objective appears to be to identify a common thread running through the Greek words eros -- human sexual love -- and agape -- spiritual love.
He writes that sexual love "is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings." He says: "True eros tends to rise in ecstasy towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves . . . [on] a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.
"Even if eros is at first mainly covetous . . . a fascination for the great promise of happiness in drawing near to the other, it [becomes] less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants 'to be there' for the other.
"The element of agape thus enters this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. . . . Fundamentally 'love' is a single reality, but with different dimensions; at different times, one or other dimension may emerge more clearly."
Benedict says sexual love is rooted in every human being. He acknowledges that Christianity in the past was often criticized for being "opposed to the body," and he says: "It is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed.
"Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure sex, has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great 'yes' to the body."
He then challenges the conventional opposing definitions of spiritual love and sexual love and argues that they are the same, that even God manifests a love for humanity that is sexual but also totally spiritual -- a love that is personal but exists with the aim of healing the whole human race.
In the Pope's words
Excerpts from Pope Benedict's first encyclical:
"Today, the term 'love' has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words. . . . We speak of love of country, love of one's profession, love between friends, love of work, love between parents and children, love of neighbour and love of God. Amid this multiplicity of meanings, however, one in particular stands out: love between man and woman, where body and soul are inseparably joined and human beings glimpse an apparently irresistible promise of happiness."
". . . Love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to her [the church] as ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. . . . For the church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being."
Sounds like Benedict has been reading the Post Structuralists, especially his comments on the body and its commodification. "Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure sex, has become a commodity, a mere 'thing' to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great 'yes' to the body
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socialism
communism
Che
Catholicism
Pope Benedict XVI
Papal Encyclical
Socialism and the New Man
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