In Malaya, at least, there was no real need to threaten the penalty of excommunication. The Malayan Catholic News frequently carried stories of Communist atrocities in mainland China and the formation of an official “patriotic” Church recognized by the government. Expelled missionaries came to Malaya and brought with them stories of great suffering but incredible heroism. Most notable among them was Bishop Carlos Van Melckebeke, who had been expelled from his diocese in Ningxia in 1952. He subsequently became the spiritual father of the Chinese Catholic diaspora and had his base in Malaya.¹⁶

The Aquinas speaks out

The critique of left wing ideas took on several strands. Communist atrocities were enumerated and Catholic heroism and compassion highlighted in the face of persecution. The Aquinas reported a particularly moving story of a Father Tong Che-tche, who before his Communist judges declared that “he had only one soul and one body and he would offer his soul, whole and entire to God, and his body for his country for the conversion of the next generation of Chinese.”¹⁷ In another article, the magazine described the persecution of Catholics belonging to the Legion of Mary who were accused by the Communists of being “an army hiding under the cloak of religion to serve the reactionary causes of the Imperialists.”¹⁸ Yet the author urged his readers to pray “for the mass conversion of Communists who in fact are potential saints” as he was sure the Legion in China would be doing the same.

Believing Communism was based on a faulty view of man as simply homo economicus and a mere cog in a machine¹⁹, articles in the Aquinas sought to demonstrate that because of man’s immortality, he was an end in himself and should thus never be sacrificed as a means to reach an end.

Taking aim also at what they termed a “bourgeois” intellectual fashion of denying the existence of truth and a transcendent, objective moral order, they asked if such a denial was not ultimately the same as Communism, for Communism too argued that right and wrong were simply “determined by the majority or collectivity.”²⁰ Since reason was the “highest quality of the human person which distinguishes him from the animals”, there existed a “natural moral law” intrinsic to his nature which “ultimately is the only defence of liberty against totalitarian regimes”.²¹ They argued that the argument against “the dangerous myth that there are values out in the world” was self-contradictory because the author started from the premise that his argument was objectively true and not merely a personal opinion.²²

Social justice for breadwinners

Aware that the strength and support of the Communists derived in no small part from unjust structures and practices in the workplace, Catholic university students sought to promote the Church’s social doctrine. But, recognizing they formed a minority on campus, they spoke not by quoting scripture but through the language of reason.