by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
The reader will undoubtedly remember what this column published about IDO-C (International Center for Documentation and Information on the Conciliar Church), a global propaganda powerhouse dedicated to spreading communist religious and social doctrines within Catholic circles. We based our information on the London magazine Approaches. Primarily, IDO-C propaganda works with countless Catholic magazines and newspapers, religious columnists from many large-circulation dailies, major publishing houses, and many “star” writers and lecturers across Europe, the Americas, and other regions worldwide. Humanly speaking, IDO-C is unstoppable.
A shocking article published in Madrid’s well-known Catholic magazine Ecclesia (No. 1423, January 11) revealed the existence of a specialized superpower that is no longer present in written propaganda but now uses a very peculiar form of verbal propaganda to serve similar and malicious goals. In my view, this method is more effective than radio and television. They are “small groups” that make up the so-called “prophetic current.” Let me inform the reader about them.
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What’s the Goal of the “Prophetic Groups”?
Ecclesia reports that, according to experts and historians of the “prophetic” movement’s doctrine, the Catholic Church has been misled since the fourth century. They call these sixteen centuries the “Constantinian Era” because it began when Emperor Constantine lifted the Church from the catacombs, recognized its legal status, made it the official Church of the Empire, and provided it with palaces and treasures for worship and charity. Favored by the first Christian emperor, the Church grew powerful and arrogant. It portrayed itself as the infallible leader of faith and morals, built grand cathedrals to celebrate its glory, shaped a culture and civilization to its liking, and spread worldwide with universities, colleges, and charitable works to teach its doctrine globally. The enormous influence the Church gained placed it in the hands of a controlling hierarchy, from which the Roman Pontiffs have spiritually ruled the most influential peoples at will for sixteen centuries. This is what the “Prophetic Groups” refer to as the “triumphalist,” “paternalistic” (in a negative sense, meaning authoritarian), and “alienating” Church.
As we know, Luther and Calvin hurled such calumnies against the Church. However, as we shall see, the destructive plans of the two “reformers” were not as daring as those of the “Prophetic Groups.”
The strongest criticism from the “Prophetic Groups” against the “Constantinian” Church is the term “alienating.” It does not refer to mental alienation; this term is borrowed from Marxism. Alienating describes a person who dominates others, while the “alienated” individual allows themselves to be dominated. Alienation is a relationship between an exploiter and an exploited person. The exploiter commands, and the exploited obey.
According to this view, all authority involves alienation and exploitation, just like all forms of superiority. Whenever there is a superior and an inferior, the authority of the former affects the latter. To eliminate all alienating exploitation, one must overthrow all authority and establish the strictest equality among people. When the “Prophetic Groups” discuss alienation and disalienation, it’s clear that this is how they understand these terms. This is reflected in the changes they seek to introduce in the “Constantinian” Church to create a new church fully based on what they call our current era’s egalitarian mindset.
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Our idea of a personal God, transcendent and infinitely greater than creatures, distances people. It should be replaced with the idea of an impersonal, immanent God, as if spread out and diluted in all beings; a God who is neither outside nor above creatures, and therefore, not alienating.
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All sacred narratives that tell us about a “Constantinian” God must be rejected. They are ancient myths that modern people no longer accept. The New Church will be without myths, meaning it will be demythologized, because these myths separated or oppressed people by depicting a transcendent and superior God.
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Additionally, the “Constantinian” idea of a supernatural and sacred religious realm being above the natural, temporal, and earthly realm was alienating. Embedded within the earthly realm, the New Church aims to improve humanity’s situation through science, technology, and progress. The New Church is fully dedicated to humanity’s primary earthly concern by working to eliminate exploitation among people through the abolition of economic and social inequalities, as all of these are alienating.
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The New Church no longer sees itself as a Teacher. This stance contradicts the dignity of today’s advanced people, who think for themselves. Therefore, individuals can develop their faith and morals guided by their conscience. The New Church, being super-ecumenical, only asks that its members work to free the exploited and oppressed from alienation.
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Therefore, the New Church does not want a “sacred” clergy who live only for religion and stand apart from ordinary people through their habits, attitudes, and distinctive attire, as this would create distance. The desacralized New Church desires priests who live, act, and treat themselves like any layperson.
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The New Church rejects an alienating organization in which spiritual power is held entirely by the pope, bishops, and clergy. Instead, it calls for establishing an elected parliament of laypeople to communicate the people’s will and influence the hierarchy to govern according to their desires. The New Church is democratic; the faithful elect bishops and parish priests.
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The New Church only supports universities, schools, or social works that do not engage in apostolate because apostolate means teaching, and teaching is about treating one’s neighbor as a disciple, which is to alienate him.