Lost 'condemnations' of communism prepared for the Second Vatican Council in 1962 but later discarded have been made available to the public for the first time in an English translation by the religious affairs website LifeSiteNews.
The documents contain a plan for a coordinated global effort to counteract the influence of Marxism and communism worldwide and 'shatter its audacity'.
But the condemnations were rejected following the takeover of the council's commissions by a group of relatively liberal bishops.
Now, thanks to LifeSite, their contents can be revealed.
The documents show that Vatican II's preparatory commissions had created three different statements that would condemn Marxism as an 'exceedingly grave and universal danger' and communism as 'a false religion without God' that sought to 'to subvert the foundations of Christian civilization'.
According to LifeSite, the most comprehensive document formulated by the preparatory commissions was entitled, 'On the care of souls with regard to Christians infected with communism'. It called for a three-pronged approach: to counteract communist propaganda among those who were under its influence in the free world; to aid those Catholics who had escaped from communist countries; and to offer covert help to the 'silent Church' suffering under communist tyranny.
The document warned that communists seek to 'radically overturn the social order and to subvert the foundations of Christian civilization' and that communism was the equivalent of a false religion based on materialism, with its own doctrines, sacraments, and promise of salvation.
Quoting Pope Pius XI, the document notes that communism is 'pervaded, in a pseudo-mystical way, with a certain false idea of justice, equality and fraternity' which has the effect of 'inflaming the masses by enticing them with deceitful promises,' and adds that it 'offers a false idea of redemption' a 'false religion without God,' which functions like 'a new gospel and like a form of salvific redemption'. The result is 'the plundering of man's liberty...and likewise the overturning of human dignity and the desecration of human life, as well as the removal of the authority of parents to educate their children'.
The document states: 'To the Church belongs the right and duty of fighting against atheistic communism regarding doctrine and regarding action or methods of activity.' It adds that 'a spiritual struggle against atheistic communism, or "this invention so full of errors and delusions," must be carried out so that the Christian faithful might be strengthened'.
It envisaged a strategy that included an international commission of bishops and lay experts that would oversee the global struggle to 'defend and liberate mankind from the errors of atheism and communism' and which would 'promote and coordinate the studies, works, ordinances, and laws that debilitate communism and shatter its audacity'.
Opposition to a full-scale resistance strategy against communism meant the documents were abandoned and left to gather dust.
You can read the full documents via LifeSite here.
