Christianity and Communism are Incomparable

I am prompted to write in response to an article “Is Christianity doomed just like communism?” by Allan Tacca which appeared in the Sunday Monitor of April 15, 2012. The article in question is interesting to read and I appreciate the creativity of the author in weaving all sorts of ideas to entertain his readers. According to the language of that text, it is more of an informative text rather than anything else. By informative I mean, it is intended only to provide some knowledge and this is juxtaposed to performative texts which intends to put in place either a policy or a working system!
However, there are some incongruences within the text which are irreconcilable. First, the comparison made between Christianity and Communism betrays all the rules of logic. How could Tacca compare a Socio-Political system (Communism) with a religious system (Chrisitianity)? The two have different foundations and motivations and aspirations for their existence. Whereas communism is rooted in human history and is solely attached to that history with mundane aspirations, Christianity trascends human history and projects itself to eternity with everlasting aspirations for its adherents. Christianity and communism are fundamentally incompatible - one a spiritual creed, the other materialist. Christianity lays down that a man’s responsibility to his neighbour is personal, a matter for his individual conscience, while communism decrees that all duties are collective, to be enforced by the state. At first glance, communism may look like the fairer system, and Christianity the more selfish. That’s why Tacca wrote that “…the once ruthless Castros were more polite and flexible than the Pope.” But we have to contend that, communism and its blood-brother, fascism, have been responsible - in Asia, Europe, Africa and South America - for more human misery over the past century than any other systems of belief thought up by man. By denying human beings their individuality, all totalitarian systems brutalise the human condition, reducing everyone in their sway to the status of ants, or cogs in a machine. Christianity teaches that each of us is a moral being, responsible for our actions to our Maker, and individually bound to love our neighbours as ourselves. I don’t know what motivated Tacca really to make such an absurd comparison!
Secondly, the reference to Christianity was only denoting Christianity as expressed and practiced in the Catholic Church. The evidence within the text suggest that his objective was a veiled attack on the doctrines, practices and traditions and leadership of the Catholic Church. In the opening sentence he said “…Pope Benedict should not forget that his organisation has also accumulated plenty of soot.”By sarcastically referring to the Church of Jesus Christ as “Pope Benedict’s organisation” is indicative of his impoverished knowledge about the nature of the Church, its history, its constitution, its mission on earth and its ultimate end. Thirdly, he clandestinely, made a lot of bewildering claims against the practices of Catholics that leaves any sober mind questioning why! His passive reference to Msgr. Ngobya with ridicule and cynicism is a sign of deep seated hatred for Catholic practices. He said that: “…A priest here who died 26 years ago has been exhumed and could eventually get elevated to the rank of a saint. Among other requirements, there must be a miracle. Will that miracle be the departed man’s heart, brain and liver that are said to be in pristine shape? What if the miracle is formalin or a fiction? Apparently, he has already been dismembered, and parts of his body will be kept as fetishist relics by Catholic officialdom. Touching his coffin means good luck. We are in the realm of medieval superstition and the occult. It is a very archaic world, a Catholic world.” With such a remark, he relegates Catholic practices to medieval times of supersitions and fetish beliefs. As a novelist and socio-political commentator, what normative criteria does he apply in evaluating religious practices of believers who belong to a certain community of faith? Who instituted him to critique Catholic beliefs and practices? Whom does he represent in this project?
Again, by reading his text, one observes that he participate in a lingering universal discourse which is motivated by militant intellectualism that draws its meaning and existence in critiquing anything Catholic just because it is Catholic. Tacca uses the same language as that used in that anti-Catholic universal discourse that trashes the Church and christianity altogether: He refers to Christianity as “organised religion” and he expresses “rigidity of the Pope towards his flock” and he refers to those distinctly Catholic practices such as “…the marriage of priests and the ordination of women.” He bends so low as to participate in that cheap redundant and stale rhetoric which claims that “…the central beliefs of Christianity – creation by God, Christ’s virgin birth and resurrection, and heaven for us after death – are no longer credible.” I would like to request Tacca, who claims that the central beliefs of Christianity are no longer credible to furnish us with the details of the standard that he applies to consider what we believe and practice as credible or no longer credible. Tacca in his writing behaves like a self-appointed jury who handles a case beyond his competence and jurisdiction. And he thinks that any set of ideas that wobbles in his finite mind is true and worthy of public consumption.
It is prudent and necessary that institutions and communities that provide millions of people with meaning, hope, and support to their lives and experiences be given due respect and a second-thought. Tacca writes with that stinking pride and self-aggrandisement as he attempts to deconstruct the tenets of Christianity without providing any meaningful alternative. He is just an idealist author who writes with less reflection on the significance and consequences of his writings! According to the article of Tacca which exposed his deficient knowledge of the Catholic Church and Christianity in general, I propose that he assigns himself some homework on Christian Theology so that we could engage in a lasting and fruitful conversation.