Enrico's Encyclical

Toward a Communist- Catholic dialogue

The ritual seldom varies. On Sunday mornings in Rome's Cassia district, a slender middle-aged man accompanies his wife and son as far as the steps of the modern stone-and-glass Santa Chiara Church. He watches them enter and returns when Mass is over to accompany them home. In a country where husbands often leave churchgoing to their women, the scene is not unusual--except for one thing. The man is Enrico Berlinguer, secretary-general of Italy's Communist Party and an atheist who nonetheless is willing to accommodate the steadfast faith of his wife Letizia.

Berlinguer is also trying to come to terms with the Roman Catholic Church, to which more than 90% of all Italians belong. In a conciliatory open letter to an Italian bishop--quickly dubbed "the Berlinguer encyclical"--the Communist leader has provoked an unprecedented dialogue with the church by proffering assurances that his party not only respects religion but sees it as a possible stimulus toward building a true socialist society. Criticizing religious "intolerence" in Eastern Europe, Berlinguer said--heresy of Communist heresies--that Marxism was not an "ideological creed" but an analytical method, and that his party was "lay and democratic, and as such not theist, atheist or antitheist."

Italian Communist leaders in the past have made obeisances toward the church, but never to the extent that Berlinguer has His extraordinary statement was prompted by Bishop Luigi Bettazzi of Ivrea. After last year's national elections, in which the Communists increased their hold over the large city governments as well as 2,778 towns and villages, Bettazzi wrote an open letter to the secretary-general asking whether local Communist governments could be counted on to guarantee full respect for religion.

Berlinguer's belated 4,300-word answer--addressed to "Mr. Bishop"--was yes The party boss quoted approvingly from Pope John null encyclical Pacem in Terris, which argued that "encounters and understandings between believers and those who do not believe can be occasions for discovering truth and rendering homage to it." Berlinguer, who attacked Moscow after the invasion of Czechoslovakia and has criticized the Soviet system for its lack of political liberties, also conceded that East Bloc governments "have fallen into discriminations" against Christian believers. Nonetheless, he added, "they are beginning to come out of this situation, even if laboriously, slowly and amid contradictions." He conceded that a religious conscience could well be "a condition that can stimulate the believer to pursue the renewal of society in a socialist sense."

The Communist leader's broadside had two goals: 1) to launch a direct ideological dialogue with church authorities, and 2) to improve the party's image with middle-class Catholics who might provide further gains in future elections. With 227 seats in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies, the Communists are already formal partners in the six-party accord that supports Premier Giulio Andreotti's minority Christian Democratic government.

The Berlinguer encyclical caught church authorities by surprise. Reflecting the views of conservatives within the Italian church hierarchy, Giovanni Cardinal Benelli of Florence dismissed Berlinguer s arguments out of hand: "Christian and

Catholic principles do not accord and never will accord with Marxist principles. To argue otherwise means not knowing enough about Christian doctrine, not knowing enough about Marxism, or not knowing either."

A softer and more intriguing response appeared in the semiofficial Vatican daily L 'Osservatore Romano. In a front-page editorial that had Pope Paul's approval, the paper argued that Berlinguer's proposals needed "clarification on the doctrinal level and reassurance on the practical level." The editorial added that "Italian Catholics can hardly be blamed if their interest in the Berlinguer letter is joined and outweighed by perplexity." In a departure from tradition, the voice of the Vatican also referred to the Communist leader by name, acknowledged his power, and even hinted that accommodation on specific issues might be possible. The church door and the dialogue now appear to be open.

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