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by Plinio Correa de Oliveira
Editor's Note:
Taiwan is constantly pressured to yield
to Communist China. Today, this is most evident in the economic
sphere. Therefore, it is fitting to recall the words of the
Taiwanese bishops in 1979. These words ring prophetic as to
the intrinsic evil of all communist regimes.
We are reprinting Prof. Plinio Corrêa
de Oliveira's article "An Oasis in the Sahara,"
since it describes very well the continuing Western blindness
in face of communist regimes.
Those who promote red China and other
communist countries attempt to mask the crimes which are so
well denounced here with the pastoral simplicity of the true
language of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Would that we had more
such voices today.
***
Lying before me is a document dated,
March 20, 1979, that I consider the most beautiful joint pastoral
letter published since the time of Pius XII. I first saw it
in a copy of Cristianita (Piacenza, Italy, Oct.
1979), which transcribed it from La Documentation Catholique
(8-19-79). It is signed by Archbishop Matthew Kia Yen-Wen,
of Taipei, Archbishop Joseph Kuo, of Salamina and nine other
bishops and prelates of Taiwan. The moment I read it, I felt
obliged to write a summary.
I soaked up this limpid and crystalline
text like a traveler in the Sahara - as the well-known figure
has it - would drink from a generous spring found in an unexpected
oasis. I was thirsting to hear bishops of the Holy Church
take such a princely and gallant pastoral attitude in the
face of Communism. In this epoch of cowardly omissions and
cunningly defeatist or even cynically collaborationist attitudes,
it is remarkably refreshing to hear the bishops of a whole
nation speak like this in unison!
Is this letter really that beautiful?
Yes and no. No because it does not
possess literary genius. Yes, because with an elevated, nobly
serene, attractive and clear language, the bishops of Taiwan
have done something incomparably greater than a literary work.
They have spoken with pastoral simplicity, the true language
of Our Lord Jesus Christ. What could be greater than that?
These prelates describe their situation:
the whole West has withdrawn its ambassadors from Taiwan and
American forces no longer guarantee the coast of the island
against aggression from Communist China. All that remains
is for China to leap upon its defenseless victim. This in
turn would provoke a discreet word of agreement and even applause
from some Western leaders. Although this applause might be
rare and weak, certain centrist media are prepared to emphasize
it.
This applause rings particularly loudly
in face of the religious fraud with which communists deceive
the conventionally-minded, as evidenced in Poland.1
Nevertheless, every communist regime is pernicious and usurping.
The mere fact that it denies the family and private property
makes it diametrically opposed to the Natural Order and the
Law of God. As such, it is intrinsically illegitimate and
irremediably disastrous.
In face of all this, there are attitudes
that man is ashamed (or afraid) to take. Although even a crypto-communist
clergyman or a leftist capitalist is ready to sell everything
to enrich himself a bit, an agreement which would abandon
Taiwan to the final communist onslaught has not yet been made.
Still, the few who pay attention to this dramatic scene remain
unsure. When will the invasion come? Will the assault be brutal
or deceptive? What connivances will aid it? What monarch or
cardinal will the victor invite to visit the island and prove
that the aggression found diplomatic complicity in the West
on thrones or even next to the altars?
At this tragic moment of suspense,
behold the voice of the Taiwanese bishops, which addresses
"the bishops of the whole world, Christians and all men
who love justice" with these main points:
"Like most of the other governments
that have recognized Peking, the United States has declared
that 'Taiwan is a part of China.' By this ambiguous affirmation
the 'Taiwan question' has become 'an Internal matter' of China,
whose only recognized government is that of Peking. Our people
(17 million of them) are thus handed over, against their will,
to the mercy of a totalitarian regime that they abominate.
"For our part, we refuse to become
human cattle, puppets of a false ideology that we reject.
"The western press is now echoing
a 'democratization' in the Peking regime. Our experience,
closer to the events, reminds us that such movements regularly
appear on the Chinese mainland and indicate a stricter repression.
They are undertaken in the line of Hegelian dialectics, and
always aim to increase the regime's domination over the people.
"The process (of 'democratization')
will last just as long as necessary to keep public opinion
from being excessively shocked so that it will not react.
Once it is underway, it will prove irreversible."
"Initially, they ask us innocently
to dialogue. A sad and already long experience shows us that
this 'dialogue' inevitably leads to total and unconditional
servitude.
"Can one honestly close one's
eyes to what took place in every one of the countries of Eastern
Europe after the Second World War? Can one honestly forget
Vietnam, where the most solemn agreements guaranteed by the
great powers were cast aside one after the other until the
final fall of a people who refused to submit to the ideology
of a minority? Can one ignore the fact that the inhabitants
of that region, who had heroically borne thirty years of horrible
and inhuman war, are incapable of bearing the oppression of
this ideology and at the very risk of their lives are fleeing
from the land of their fathers in hundreds of thousands?
"Our own national experience,
repeated six times over, proves abundantly to us that to open
the doors, even a bit, to the dialogue that they are asking
for once again, is in brief, to hand ourselves over with our
hands and feet bound to an unscrupulous interlocutor.
"In the coming months, 'fraternal
gestures' await us. Perhaps they will go so far as to 'ask
our assistance' for the modernization of the motherland. The
purpose of these gestures is to destroy us if we accept them
and to turn opinion against us if we refuse them.
"If we accept the contact, they
will take advantage of it to erode us by sowing tares among
us. If we don't accept it, that will be the 'proof' that we
are not reasonable, that we refuse the extended hand, and
that the only solution is to subdue us by force.
"How will public opinion, with
its short-lived memory, grasp this infinitely subtle and perverse
ploy? In the first case, they will not consider us worthy
to be defended, since we did not come to an understanding
among ourselves. In the second case, they will say that we
are reaping what we ourselves have sown, since we are so little
prone to conciliation.
"We address all of our brothers
of the episcopate. As successors of the Apostles, Our Lord
has entrusted you with a universal responsibility. Do not
permit a part of mankind, however small it may seem to you,
to be handed over to a condition of mental and spiritual slavery
unworthy of men created by God and saved by the blood of Jesus
Christ. We are in the hands of God and also in those of our
brothers.
"Whatever the result of this initiative
of ours may be, whatever the destiny that men have in store
for us, we know that nothing can prevent Our Lord's victory
over evil."
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