Fr. Kevin Drew, Catholic Exchange, August 6, 2025
Ordained in 2012, Fr. Kevin Drew is a priest and pastor of the Diocese of Kansas City-St Joseph. He is well regarded for his preaching and evangelization. His Daily Mass and homily can be found at Catholic Radio Network.
A few years back, the Jesuit magazine America published an article titled “The Catholic Case for Communism,” questioning whether communist ideology is compatible with Catholic social teaching. But, in 1937, Pope Pius XI penned a clear condemnation of it, writing:
[It is] deception, skillfully concealed by the most extravagant promises . . . And as every error contains its element of truth, the partial truths . . . astutely presented according to the needs of time and place . . . conceal, when convenient, the repulsive crudity and inhumanity of Communistic principles and tactics.
Did Pope Pius XI have some sort of misunderstanding about communism?
The year before he wrote that, in 1936, around 6,800 priests, religious, and nuns in Spain were murdered by communists. In accordance with Marxist ideology, these communists promised that man could break his chains and live in an earthly paradise if only private property, marriage, and the family were destroyed. Communism’s archenemy then was the great defender of marriage and the family: the Church. Beyond this example, history shows time and time again that wherever communism takes hold, the Church is brutally suppressed.
In a nutshell, the fundamental principle of Christianity is charity based on love of God and neighbor. On the surface, communist principles seem to be based on a love of neighbor, pursuing ultimate equality through the sharing of goods. That is its allure, but as Pope Pius wrote, that is also its “deception,” because, beyond the superficial, a primary motivator for these principles is envy. …
