CONFUSED BY RELIGION

I am currently reading Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann in which she details the role of the Mountbattens in the partitioning of India to form Pakistan and the hand over of power in 1947. What struck me is the details given on how that partition was carried out strictly on religious grounds without any reference to the realities of local life with the then Moslem Eastern Pakistan (now Bangladesh) being deliberately made unviable in the belief that it would be forced to reunite with Hindu India.

Now I have often mentioned in this blog that I was brought up in Britain in the 50s and 60s as a Catholic in what was then a fundamentally Protestant country. I certainly remember taking part in Corpus Christi processions through the streets of my home town. Now whilst these are common yearly events in Spain, and wider Catholic Europe, it must have made a curious sight for my fellow Londoners. However in all those years I can truly say that I was never made aware of any anti-Catholic feeling. Indeed I remember when a divorcee moved in to our street accompanied by much nudge-nudging and sly winks. The woman was in all probability the innocent, hurt party but she was - the divorcee. Yet although we were the only Catholic family in the street and all marched off to mass on Sunday mornings, high days and holidays, never a word was said.

It was only when I moved to Dublin in the early 1970s that for the first time in my life religion became an issue. I would be asked straight out in the office was I Catholic or Protestant – a topic that had never been raised in my four previous jobs or whilst I was in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. I soon learned that whilst Dublin is the capital of the Catholic Republic of Ireland, such companies as Guinness, Boland’s or Gouldings were Protestant concerns, where leading with the right rather than the left foot would help in your climb up the promotional ladder. Most of the people I worked with were Catholics but there were some Protestants who were clients who believed that because I was English I must be one of them.

By then of course I wasn’t one of anything because although born a Catholic (and hence according to the Church always a Catholic) I was non-practicing and was as I am today an agnostic. It was all rather bemusing and amusing for more often than not in London it had been presumed, especially in the media world, that I was Jewish – but that’s another story.

CATHOLIC & COMMUNIST

I have always been bemused by the view that you couldn’t be a Catholic, or a Christian and a Communist.

Communism was defined in my Catholic childhood as being an evil regime rooted in the Soviet Block and hence coupled with that other ism, atheism. The two were indelibly linked.

This contrasted with the view that Christ was the first communist.

That socialists were often very strong Christians and indeed that many of the socialist parties had non-conformist church roots.

That despite Soviet rule the deep faith of the Russian people in the Orthodox Church was not diminished.

That the Eastern Block countries such as Poland had a strong Catholic belief as did the people of East Germany in the protestant church. Indeed the current Pope and his predecessor hailed from West Germany and Poland.

This subject was brought to mind yesterday when I read an interview in La Opinión de Malaga with Pedro Moreno Brenes.

Now Pedro Moreno Brenes is a communist, the leader of the Izquierda Unida party at Málaga town hall, a lecturer in law at Málaga University and a Catholic.

Nor is he a closet Catholic but practices his faith alongside his political beliefs that he has held since adolescence.

He is quite clear as to how his religion co-exists with his political leanings. He says that the IU respects all beliefs and that for him there is no conflict whether he is invited to a religious or civil event. He added that he was pleased to accept all invitations should they be from the Muslim or Jewish communities or indeed atheists.

Asked about the antagonism between the IU and the Catholic Church Pedro Moreno Brenes is quite clear. “The party, for example, proposes that there shouldn’t be any tax privileges for religious entities. It is compatible in the respect of - and the separation of - public and religious life.”

So was Christ the first Communist? Pedro Moreno Brenes is in no doubt that the Christian message of “love one another” is much the same as the communist belief in fraternity and equality.

I agree. I see no barriers to a person being a Christian, a socialist or a communist. Indeed one could argue that those alignments are more natural than a person being a Christian and a supporter of the far right. However, in the recent past, the waters became far more muddied when organisations such as the Catholic Church or the Communist Party imposed their rigid discipline and dogma over a person’s core beliefs. To be a ‘christian’ and a ‘communist’ was one thing, to be a Catholic and a member of the Communist Party was far more difficult.