The Catholic News Agency reports that the founder of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci, reverted to the Catholic faith before his 1937 death. Why is this important?
Gramsci's version of communism in Italy was a bit more sophisticated than that of other countries. One central difference is that while communism wanted to kill off the Catholic Church Gramsci's method was to do so from within by persuading Catholic families to renounce their faith and to get the clergy to slowly reject matters of belief and practice which would impact life in the Church and in culture. His was a brand of "cultural hegemony," meaning that one can reduce faith, reason and culture to ideology. The reduction of faith, reason and culture is also a reduction of personhood, in virtue and values, a reduction of human dignity, work and beauty which eventually lead to nihilism. A person can't thrive in a system where life is built on false premises and therefore, life is lived without meaning and seriousness.
The story is here.
Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us!
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