Ever noticed the similarities of Communism and Catholicism?

Neither of these two bodies of faith are in good shape. The Soviet Union was pronounced dead decades ago and Roman Catholicism is losing market share to happy-clappers.

Both faiths have their Old and New Testaments – the Commos’ being the writings of Marx and Lenin (inset).

Today let’s examine the surreal similarities between Soviet Communism and Roman Catholicism. My sermon begins with a paradox: at 16, I was the youngest member of the Communist Party of Australia (as my ASIO file attests) and therefore an advocate of overthrowing capitalism – yet I was employed in a Melbourne ad agency. And thus, I was a mercenary for international corporations.

From my place of employment it was a brief stroll to St Patrick’s Cathedral. I would often make the pilgrimage to its Gothic splendour and eat my lunchtime sangers in its cool, quiet interior, alone except perhaps for a priest lurking in the confessional hoping to attract passing sinners. And I noticed that the religious tracts on display bore an eerie similarity to the Communist tomes proffered in the International Bookshop in Elizabeth St. So to encourage the dialectic, I began to swap them over.

They were about the same size and printed on cheap paper, one lot featuring the upturned face of Jesus Christ and the other that of the Marxist messiah Vladimir Lenin. One might contain warnings about blasphemy and heresy, the other about Revisionism or the evils of Trotsky. One asked “Why Not Be a Nun?”, its counterpart urging party membership. Did my subversive efforts lead to conversions or confusions? Perhaps to left-wing nuns?

St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. Picture: iStock

Both faiths had their Old and New Testaments – the Commos’ being the writings of Marx and Lenin. Both had central HQs – Rome’s Vatican versus Moscow’s Kremlin. One had the Pope, one had Stalin. One kept relics like the bones of saints; the other had entire embalmed bodies. Both had their list of banned books. Both employed confession (though for the Commos it was public). Both threatened outer darkness, the RCs via excommunication or de-frocking, the Reds via expulsion or a show trial. One used the fear of Hell, the other of a KGB torture cell or Siberia. And both were prim about sex. (At the First Party Congress a woman stood up and said, “We have overthrown the bourgeoisie – let us now dispense with their hypocritical ‘sexual morality’. Sex is like water – if you’re thirsty you drink!” This earned Lenin’s stern admonishment, “But not from a dirty glass.”)

Sexual scandals were not a major issue for the Soviets but, of course, have undermined Roman Catholicism.

The Grand Kremlin Palace behind the Kremlin Wall in Moscow, Russia. Picture: Pavel Bednyakov

Both faiths had/have their saints – though Stalin became a fallen saint, denied burial at first within the sacred Kremlin Wall Necropolis, while Lenin lies in his marble mausoleum in Red Square, forever a place of pilgrimage for the faithful and the morbidly curious. Later the same fate would await the pickled corpses of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square and Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi. All of these sainted corpses require regular maintenance, of course.

Nor are the two bodies of faith in good shape. The Soviet Union was pronounced dead some decades ago (these days the CPA is down to two or three members and I’m not one of them; ASIO can close my file), while Roman Catholicism is losing market share to those pesky happy-clappers. And there’s a worldwide shortage of nuns and priests, but plenty of popes. Amen.