The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-02-24
Catholic Thought And Opinion
By REV. JOSEPH F. DONNELLY

tibtiIS Vi ttiC ftuSohdIi pcOplc Ialdt
have been attacked, and 1t Is only
because we justly Judge that the
further destruction of the rights of
the Russian people as greater evil
than the evil of their present per-
secution that we can morally sane
ton aid to Russia.
Though it has become the popular
but extremely dangerous practice to
do so, we do not whitewash the So
Wet or any of its sins. We can view
only with disgust the present idoliz-
alton of Stain and his clique
of scoundrels. Nor do we over
look the fact that the Red
army has been revealed as pre-
pared in size, equipment and train
ing, for the hoped-for conquest Of
Europe and Asia. Further we despise
those post-June-1941 patriots of
America whose first allegiance Is not
American and whose growing
strength is a threat to our country
with Americas armies leaving for
the wars many fronts.
So, though aid to Russia becomes
a necessity, we denounce the Soviet
as an anti-God form Of government,
which has history of fraud, per-
jury and treachery, and with which
we must deal with caution and care.
A VICTORIOUS
RUSSIA
But is not q victorious Russia a
threat to the world? Can we help
bring victory to Russia without
bringing disaster to the world?
We see in the future two possibil-
tiles for victorious Russia. The
first is horrible. Having accomplish
ed what Britain could not, namely,
the defeat of Nazism, Soviet Russia
will hold the balance of power in
Europe and Asia. Communism will
run rampant. Internal revolution
will be a prelude to invasion and
Soviet States will spring up all over
Europe. The already blood-soaked
battlef1elds will become another Co.
iseum where again the sands will
be drained with the blood of Chris
tians.
But there Is a second possibility.
Presenting the sincerity and perm
anency of Russia's claim to have
made common cause with her allies,
claim which the history of Soviet
deceit weakens, but claim which
the course of the present war seems
to have made impervious to deceit,
the second possibility inspires hope.
Like the Cars before them the
Soviets shut their doors to the rest
of the world, decorated few show
windows, limited their outside con-
facts to few functionaries and had
little association with the rest of the
world. But now alliance and COOP
Grafton have become necessary and
the magic ring which isolated Rus
STA from the rest of the world has
been broken. The war and the re-
construction after the war is de-
manding and will further demand a
revision of RussiaS economic sys-
tenn. Today, as former Ambassador
Davies book admits, there is no
Communism in Russia. If Russia is
faithful to her obligations there
must come a moral and political
-orientation in Russia. And even
that arch-enemy of Stain and
Communism, Eugene Lyons, states
in an article in a recent American
Mercury, that Stain who in his
many DISCUSSES has changed from a
ruthless murderer to a now benevo-
lent dictator, may shed another skin
and become democrat.
There is the possibility that out
of this struggle may arise new
Russia, Russia in which the Com
munist dictatorship may be but a
tragic memory.
is 1T GODS PLAN?
This last is not mere wishful
thinking. The majority of the Eng
fish Catholic press justifies military
cooperation with Russia on the eX-
pectation that while today Russia
proscribes God, tomorrow Russia
purified by suffering, may be a vast
missionary field.
For this we offer prayers after
every Mass and for 1t two Popes
have prepared. Benedict XIV and
Plus XXI planned and foster the
Russicum Institute in Rome where
for years now Benedictines, Jesuits,
Dominicans and members of other
religious orders have been preparing
with special training in Russia's
religious problems. They now await
only the shield of religious freedom.
Will it be forged in the fires of the
present struggle? We hope and pray
that this is one of the things that
the mercy of God has determined.