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# Vatican excommunication for communist teaching and party membership remains in force
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/1-iiulia-1949-goda-papa-rimskii-pii-xii-otluchil-vsekh-kommunistov-ot-katolicheskoi-tserkvi-nazvav-marksizm-neprimirimym-vragom-khristianstva/
- Published: 2024-07-14T06:31:54.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:35:33.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Faith, Society

On 1 July 1949 Pope Pius XII excommunicated all Communists from the Catholic Church, calling Marxism an "implacable enemy" of Christianity.

Excommunication was imposed for embracing the Communist doctrine and propagating it, for membership of the Communist Party and collaboration with it, and for reading and distributing its press, on the ground that Communism was a "*materialist and anti-Christian doctrine*", while Communist leaders "*by both their teaching and their actions display their hostility towards God, towards the true religion and towards the Church of Christ*".

This was neither the first official Vatican document against Communism nor the last: it condemned membership of the Communist Party, membership of Communist youth organisations, the appropriation of the functions of the Church by the state, and Communist totalitarianism. The excommunication remains in force to this day.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_12789@14-07-2024_09-31-54.jpg)