DELASSINEU Authority Stateletter In 192 e me 9 24 181 economic and political questions were not generally the problems of the Church, the Church must cooperate in the solution of social problems in which it was not only sincerely interested but in the solving of which it could be a force for good. He was careful to point out, however, that the Communist Party which has then but recently been organized in Costa Rica, was concerned with political problems and had offected little or no benefit in the betterment of social conditions here.
Costa Rican problems, were different from those in other countries, he wrote, and he gave Catholic communicants to understand that Communism was not the solution of them by citing Russia as an example of the completo breakdown of Communist ideas. In order to emphasize his agreement with his Church on its stand on Communism, the Archbishop referred in his letter of June 14, 1943 to Manuel Mora to the anti Communistic references im the Papal Encyclical sponsored by the Archepiscopal Center of Catholic Action in 1941. 18. 001699 It will be recalled from this Mission dospa teh no.
389 of June 13, 1942, that Archbishop Sanabria gave his sanction to the inclusion of social guarantees in the Constitution, though he remained silent on the aetual bonofits those guarantees would bring the workers. He has likewise takon a favorable attitude toward the controvorsial Labor Code (see despatch 1697 of April 21, 1943 from this Mission. and in La Tribuna of August 6, 1943 he stated that since the Labor Codo was a human work it could not be perfect, but we must hope to make it better.
In the same newspaper, Father Ben amin Nuñez, who has been designated by the Archbishop to be the Church liaisom officer with the syndicalist movement in Costa Rica, was quoted as sayir Lcates were as necessary in the modern world as factories and plants, 818, 00 1755 The Embassy, through its well informed confidential source, has learned of a revealing letter which Mens ignor Sanabria recently wrote to Vicente Saenz in Mexico City.
Señor Saenz, if not actually a Communist, is at least a mfellow traveler. This letter was written in affectionate terms and began by thanking Señor Saenz for the congratulatory letter he had received from him on the subject of the Archbishop stand with regard to the former Communist Party, now the Vanguardia Popular. In explaining his attitude the Archbishop continued more or less as follows. You, Vicente, who have known me since we want to the Liceo together, know that first, and above all, am a Costa Rican, intensely proud of my country.
As such, duty to my country comes first and above everything. The stand took with regard to Vanguardia Popular was based upon the fact that there are, unfortunately, entirely too few people who recognize or are willing to admit the fact that today the world is undergoing a profound change, the like or which mankind has never before known in its centuries of history. For a long time have