Regards, Mike B)
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The Church’s animus toward Stalinism was not due to the antidemocratic, caste-like rule of the Stalinist bureaucracy as such—all that was perfectly in keeping with the inner operations of the Church itself as an institution. The Church hierarchy itself is a caste, which originated in pre-capitalist society and is now rooted in capitalist social relations.
The Catholic Church is, after all, the largest single property owner in the world. Hence the Church supported bloody Latin American dictatorships, which upheld capitalist property, but opposed Stalinist regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe that were based on nationalized property.
On this fundamentally reactionary basis, the Catholic Church openly sided with Solidarity. Less than eight months after his appointment, the new pope undertook his first “pilgrim’s journey” to Poland, followed by additional visits in 1983 and 1987. In January 1980, John Paul II granted an audience to a delegation of Solidarity members led by Lech Walesa. Drawing from different sources, the Vatican gathered at least $50 million to support the trade union in the ensuing years.
The aim of the Vatican, however, was not to support the social demands of the workers. Rather, it sought to keep the movement under the influence of reactionary Catholic ideology and Polish nationalism, and ensure that it did not develop into an international challenge to the existing order. The Catholic hierarchy, whose experience in defending authority and order spanned one-and-a-half millennia, was highly aware that a popular movement such as that which had developed in Poland could not be tamed through passive means, but had to be actively influenced and turned in a different direction.
full: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/pope-a06.shtml
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