A Letter to the Archbishop of Recife (Helder Câmara) – Folha de S. Paulo, August 26, 1973

 

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

Dear Archbishop,

I have just learned from the press that the MDB has proposed your candidacy for the presidency of the country at a meeting of that party’s members in Porto Alegre (I would gladly address you as Your Excellency, but I do not, as I am told you do not like it).

As is often the case wherever your name appears, there was dissent, conflict, uproar, and propaganda. The episode, irrelevant since your name was rejected, nevertheless reveals a significant fact. Even after your prolonged silence, you have enthusiastic supporters in Rio Grande do Sul, so far from Pernambuco. In fact, they are so enthusiastic that they dream of seeing you one day in our country’s presidency. If your influence has reached the southernmost tip of the country, it is no surprise that it has also reached all areas between Recife and Porto Alegre, and that you have groups of supporters here and there throughout this vast region. A fortiori, there are such groups in the Northeast, whose capital is the beautiful city of Recife, to which John XXIII appointed you, and in which Paul VI keeps you.

All this was easy to foresee for attentive observers of the national reality. But I believe the fact will come as a surprise to the vast sectors of our public opinion, lulled into a sluggish sleep by the conviction of our prosperity, who figured you were a specter of the past. With Nixonian recklessness, they believed the euphoria of progress had defeated the ideological struggle in our country. Since they like neither struggles nor ideologies, this gave them a delightful double illusion. Now, the ruckus you are causing is awakening them from their relaxed slumber, and they realize that it only takes a little stir in presidential succession politics for your enthusiasts to set in motion a mechanism of ideological action that has never ceased to thrive in the shadows.

There is more. The daily press also reported that you will soon undertake a series of international lecture tours in Sweden, Norway, and the United States. You will speak to small audiences of Protestants and Catholics, thus repeating the international tours you used to make, whose most palpable effect was to dazzle and multiply your supporters in Brazil.

There is more than a simple chronological coincidence between the trial candidacy in Rio Grande do Sul and the planned trip to the Scandinavian Peninsula and North America. Years ago, your propaganda in Brazil and around the world was gradually moving toward the same goal, so everything suggests that its resurgence is not a mere coincidence.

All of this serves to give our nation’s “a-ideologists” a more open and objective view.

* * *

However, Archbishop, between your activities of yesteryear and those of today, a development has unfolded that no one can underestimate, giving every Brazilian the right to ask you this question: Why are you keeping silent about Chile? One of the greatest Latin American peoples, close to us in faith, race, and geography, is dying. The implementation of socialist and statist ideology has led them to a state of decline, a decline that only those who closely follow the Chilean press can fully comprehend.

Chile had a socioeconomic structure similar to ours, with flaws similar to ours. People like you argued for a complete reform of this structure to correct those errors. Such people led Chile to the brink of the precipice where Brazil found itself in 1964. While we stopped at the edge of the precipice (much to the regret of so many of your supporters), Chilean Christian Democrats, led by Frei, sent their country down the slippery slope. The result was that hunger and injustices the Chilean left claimed to fight multiplied a thousandfold. And roughly the same people, led by Cardinal Silva Henriquez, are doing all they can to stifle the reactions that could lift our brotherly people out of catastrophe.

These facts, so widely reported, have not gone unnoticed by Brazilian opinion. They create widespread and understandable apprehension about the results they could lead us to if the comeback you seem to be rehearsing succeeds.

While the Chilean tragedy is such as to arouse caution even in the most unprepared, it raises a question about you. Those who still retain your erstwhile image as a champion in the fight against poverty are particularly entitled to ask this question. In light of the sinister Chilean catastrophe, has the experience of concrete facts not changed you at all? Why have you, who traveled the world crying out against poverty, not yet uttered a single word of disappointment or reproach regarding the disaster that has overtaken Chile? Given your past, Archbishop Helder, if you want to awaken new enthusiasm in our country, you must express yourself with crystal clarity about the Chilean experience. Without this, you will always find the same question hindering your steps along all paths: Why are you silent about Chile?

* * *

I am presenting this question to you in this column. To facilitate your response, I will provide some information about the situation in Chile. Do not assume that I have taken this information from a study prepared by that country’s glorious TFP. It all comes from a report by the Chilean Christian Democratic Party (CDP), which is above suspicion because, as I said earlier, under the leadership of Frei, the Chilean Kerensky, it was the party that paved the way for Allende to come to power. This report was published in a Santiago publication that is very friendly to you. It is the magazine Ercilla of June 12, 1973, from which I extract the following data.

1. In 1972, the cost of living rose by 163%.

2. Over two and a half years of the socialist Popular Unity government, the minimum wage increased 3.3 times, while the prices of essential goods rose “officially” by almost 10 times.

3. The issuance of paper money rose from 9,199 million escudos in December 1970 to 71,835 million in April 1973, an increase of 8 times.

4. Agricultural production fell by 25% since 1970.

5. In 1970, each person had 134 kilograms of wheat. By 1972, that figure had fallen to less than 90 kilograms.

6. In 1970, each person had 22 kilograms of sugar. By 1972, this figure had dropped to 13 kilograms.

7. Milk production has decreased by 26%.

8. In 1970, $180 million was spent on food imports. By 1973, that figure will rise to $680 million.

9. Industrial production fell sharply.

10. There was a mass exodus of technicians.

11. More than 80 billion escudos were lost due to interventions in companies.

12. There has been a sharp decline in exports. For example, steel exports fell by 90%, saltpeter and iodine by 30%, olive oil by 51%, fish meal by 58%, and onions by 80%. As a result, the country lost $200 million, which could have been used to purchase 400 million kilograms of chicken, equivalent to 40 kilograms of poultry per person.

From another Chilean magazine, Que Pasa, of July 5, I take these terrifying data on the Von Buren Hospital in Valparaiso.

1. Operations have been suspended for a month because of a shortage of sterilized clothing.

2. Patients must bring their own bedding and blankets.

Food is very meager, such as “Caldo Witt” (a kind of industrialized powdered soup, as found everywhere) and similar items. This is how the patients’ bodies must respond to the disease.

* * *

I submit this information for your consideration. In closing, I offer you my regards. As a Catholic, driven by tradition and the natural impulses of my soul to kiss your pastoral ring, I would conclude by saying that I make this gesture of respect from a distance and in spirit. However, as you apparently do not appreciate this traditional greeting, I will limit myself to asking Our Lady of Campos dos Guararapes to enlighten you for your good and ours.