Some of the main themes touched by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira were also dealt with by other contemporary Catholic thinkers, generically defined “traditionalists”. It is sufficient here to recall the names of the Belgian philosopher, Marcel De Corte,126 of the French founder of the “Cité Catholique”, Jean Ousset,127 of the Italian philosopher, Augusto Del Noce,128 of the Swiss historian, Gonzague de Reynold,129 of the Spanish thinker, Francisco Elías de Tejada.130
Revolution and Counter-Revolution was not however just an intellectual work, but also the living germ of a movement that was destined to develop and spread throughout the world. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira differs from many other contemporary traditionalist intellectuals precisely because of the role that he attributed to the living thought, destined to be communicated through personal action and to be organized in the apostolate of conquest. This unprecedented union of thought and action was not understood by some traditionalist circles, used to reconciling the Counter-Revolutionary doctrine with a political procedure inspired by various theories. This occurred above all in France, after the experience of Action Française.
France, “eldest daughter of the Church”, was the fatherland of the Catholic Counter- Revolution that here produced its most penetrating minds, from Father Pierre de Clorivière to Mgr. Henri Delassus. But between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, under the influence of Charles Maurras131 and with the birth of Action Française, there was a “turning point” in the French traditional thinking in a positivistic and naturalistic sense.132 One of its exponents, Louis Dimier, during lessons held in 1906 at the Institute of Action Française, numbered among the “masters of the Counter-Revolution” such authors as Sainte-Beuve, Balzac, Taine, Renan and even the Socialist Proudhon.133 This was happening in the same years when within the Church the social modernism of Sillon condemned by St Pius X was developing. The analogy between Modernism and Action Française did not escape a Counter-Revolutionary author such as Augustin Cochin who thus summarized it:
“By pressing the movement to its end, the Modernist would like to set the Church in the place of God. Even today there are those who put the body before the spirit and order before the end: Maurras defends the body for the order that it presents; Le Roy134 compromises the spirit; it is the same doctrine: intellectual with Le Roy, materialist with Maurras”.135
Initially some Counter-Revolutionary Catholics such as a Father de Pascal136 and a Dom Besse,137 collaborated with Action Française, appreciating its dynamism and the efficiency of its intervention. It was however a strictly procedural collaboration, conditioned by the loyalty of the Church movement. But Action Française, in its evolution from political movement to school of thought, saw the doctrine of Maurras prevail over the Counter- Revolutionary doctrine.138
The prudent attitude of St Pius X, who summarized his judgement on Maurras’ writings in the formula damnabiles non damnandos, is a point of reference that cannot be eliminated.139 Pius X approved Maurras’ condemnation, but postponed its public promulgation judging it to be inopportune at a moment of open conflict with the French government. Maurras’ followers stressed the second term of the formulation, which however only shows a contingent judgement, of a diplomatic nature, indicating an opportunity and not an evaluation. In St Pius X’s damnabiles lies all the substance of a clear doctrinal judgement, which today does not permit any true Catholic to look on Maurras as a model.
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira’s judgement of Action Française, expressed a number of times in the Legionário was coherent with the position of the Magisterium of the Holy See.140 Apart from affinities or convergences at a strictly political level, there was a basic incompatibility between the doctrine of the Church and that professed by the heads of Action Française.
Beside the problems with Maurras,141 in some circles of post-war French traditionalist culture there were traces of old errors such as Jansenism and Gallicanism. The latter being hostile to that Roman Catholic spirit which is, first and foremost, the universality and the capacity to understand good, wherever it appears and with the legitimate modalities proper to every reality. But what characterized these circles was above all a defeatist mentality, that could ill agree with the combative and hope-filled theories of Revolution and Counter- Revolution.142
Strange as it may seem, in Europe, Revolution and Counter-Revolution had its deepest influence, apart from in the Iberian peninsula, above all in Italy, a country without a traditionalist culture in the strict sense of the term.
European Counter-Revolutionary thought in fact summed up its vision in the formula “Throne and Altar”, that is in loyalty to the Church and to the dynasties that in the course of history embodied Catholic tradition. However, in Italy, after the elimination of the pre- unification dynasties by the Piedmont of the Savoys and the subsequent invasion of Rome of 1870, the breach opened between the Papacy and the House of Savoy left no room for Counter-Revolutionary legitimism. Even after the fall of the monarchy, the monarchists occupied Liberal-Nationalistic positions, while the Catholics were diverted towards the Christian Democratic Party, responsible for the transfer to the left of the post-war Catholic world.143 In this way, in the land chosen by Providence for the See of Peter, an authentically Catholic political action was lacking and the strongest and best organized Communist Party of the West, following the lesson of Antonio Gramsci, was able to develop the strategy of the historical compromise. This brought about, in May 1996, the rise to power of the Neo- Communists..
While Italy was in the throes of political agitation, the group of Alleanza Cattolica was born around the principles of Revolution and Counter-Revolution that had been translated and published by Giovanni Cantoni.144 It was followed, in 1973, by the birth of the magazine “Cristianità”. Subsequently other groups and movements were inspired by Revolution and Counter-Revolution, among which figures the Centro Culturale Lepanto, founded in Rome in 1982.145
Notes:
126. Of Marcel De Corte (1905-94), Cf. Philosophie des moeurs contemporaines, Brussels, Editions Universitaires, 1944; L’homme contre lui même, Paris, Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1962. On De Corte Cf. Miguel Ayuso Torres, Danilo Castellano, Juan Vallet de Goytisolo, “In memoriam Marcel De Corte”, Verbo, nos. 327-8, 1994, pp. 761-94.
127. Jean Ousset (1914-94), Pour qu’il règne, Paris, Dominique Martin Morin, Ousset’s work, that appeared for the first time in 1957, had numerous editions in France and many translations. The movement of La Cité Catholique, founded by Ousset in 1947, became in 1963 Office International des Oeuvres de Formation Civique et d’Action Culturelle selon le Droit Naturel et Chrétien. It had its greatest intellectual development in Spain, with the magazine Verbo directed by Juan Vallet de Goytisolo. Cf. Estanislao Cantero, “A los treinta anos”, Verbo, nos. 301-02, January-February 1992, pp. 7-16.
128. On Augusto Del Noce (1910-89), author, apart from the already mentioned works, of L’epoca della secolarizzazione (Milan, Giuffré, 1970) and Il suicidio della Rivoluzione (Milan, Rusconi, 1979), Cf. Rocco Buttiglione, Augusto Del Noce. Biografia di un pensiero, Casale Monferrato, Piemme, 1991; R. de Mattei, “Augusto Del Noce y el suicidio de la Revolución”, Verbo, nos. 337-8, 1995, pp. 871-86.
129. Of Count Gonzague de Reynold (1880-1970), especially L’Europe tragique, Paris, Spes, 1934; La formation de l’Europe, 10 vols., Paris, Plon, 1944-52.
130. Of Francisco Elias de Tejada (1917-78), Cf. La monarquía tradicional, Madrid, Rialp, 1954. On this figure, Cf. the recent study by M. Ayuso Torres, La filosofía jurídica y política di Elías de Tejada, Madrid, Fundación Francisco Elías de Tejada, 1994.
131. Charles Maurras (1869-1952), founder of the newspaper and movement of Action Française, exercised great influence over various generations of French intellectuals. An ample view of his work in Eugen Weber, L’Action française, Paris, Stock, 1964. also Robert Havard de la Montagne, Histoire de l’Action Française, Paris, Amiot-Dumont, 1950; Colette Capitan Peter, Charles Maurras et l’idéologie d’Action Française, Paris, Seuil, 1972; Victor Nguyen, Aux origines de l’Action française. Intelligence et politique à l’aube du XXe. siècle, Paris, Fayard, 1991.
132. The “turning point” was well described by Rafael Gambra Ciudad in La monarquía social y representativa en el pensamiento tradicional, (Madrid, Rialp, 1964), pp. 21-31, and in the entry Tradicionalismo, in GER, vol. XXII (1975), pp. 671-3. Gambra distinguishes between the right-wing, Catholic and counter-revolutionary traditionalism and left-wing traditionalism that, influenced by Comte, leads, through Taine and Renan, to Action Française. cf.also R. de Mattei, “Augustin Cochin e la storiografia contro-rivoluzionaria”, Storia e Politica”, vol. 4, 1973, pp. 570-85.
133. Louis Dimier, Les maîtres de la contre-révolution au XIX siècle, Paris, Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1907, 115-35 (Balzac), pp. 161-84 (Sainte-Beuve), pp. 187-208 (Taine), pp. 209-230 (Renan), pp. 279-303 (Proudhon).
134. Edouard Le Roy (1870-1954), follower of Bergson, was the philosopher who tried to give a doctrinal base to modernism. Many works by Father Garrigou-Lagrange were written precisely to disprove its fundamental agnosticism.
135. A. Cochin, Abstraction révolutionnaire et réalisme catholique, (Paris-Lille, Desclée de Brouwer, 1960), pp. 54-5. “The method of Action Française — observes Stéphane Rials — does not ignore transcendency, but it effects a utilitarian treatment of it through a positivist interpretation. The Humanity of Comte becomes the Nation of Maurras. Transcendence is bent to the horizontal dimension, immanence is idolized, Providence is denied” (Révolution et Contre-Révolution au XIX siècle, pp. 48-9).
136. Of Father Georges de Pascal (1840-1918), see among others, Enseignement social, vues sociales d’un homme de tradition, Paris, Rondelet, 1899; Révolution et Contre-Révolution, le centenaire de 1789 et les conservateurs catholiques, avec une lettre de M. le Marquis de La Tour du Pin, Paris, Impr. de Saudaux, 1898. Cf. A. de Lavalette Mobrun, Le père de Pascal, Paris, Jouve, 1918.
137. Jean-Martial Besse (1861-1920), Benedictine historian and scholar, in 1909 held the professorship of Syllabus in the Institut d’Action Française. On him, apart from L’Eglise et les libertés, Cf. Eglise et Monarchie, Paris, Jouve, 1910; Le catholicisme libéral, Paris, Desclée, 1911; Les Religions laiques, Paris, Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1913.
138. This aspect was noted by Jean Madiran: “The generation of Catholics that were formed in a Catholic way, and who became part of Action Française by virtue of a “compromise for action”, was succeeded by a generation that had a Maurrasian formation and was no longer sensitive to what could have been irritating and in any case unacceptable for a Christian, in Maurras’ school of thought”. Madiran, L’Intégrisme, histoire d’une histoire, (Paris, Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1964), p. 97.
139. On 2 January 1914 the Congregation of the Index judged that five books of Maurras (Chemin de Paradis, Anthinea, Les amants de Venise, Trois idées politiques, L’avenir de l’intelligence) and the magazine L’Action Française directed by him deserved condemnation. St Pius X considered it opportune to postpone the promulgation of the decree of 29 January 1914, but the excommunication was then pronounced by Pius XI in 1926. In 1939, after the signature, by the directors of Action Française, of a declaration of submission, the sanctions regarding the newspaper were removed by Pius XII (Cf. Decree of the Holy Office of 10 July 1939; response of the Sacred Penitentiary of 24 July of the same year; the condemnation of the writings of Maurras listed by the Index remained in force). cf.also Lucien Thomas, L’Action française devant l’Eglise. De Pie X à Pie XII, Paris, Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1965; Michael Sutton, Nationalism, positivism and catholicism: the politics of Maurras and French Catholics, London, Cambridge University Press, 1982; Oscar. L. Arnal, Ambivalent alliance. The Catholic Church and the Action Française. 1899-1939, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985; André Laudouze, Dominicains français et Action Française, Paris, Les Editions Ouvrières, 1989.
140. When the excommunication was revoked by Pius XII, he ended the controversy with these words: “There is no greater pretence than to be more Catholic than the Pope. Rome has spoken: the case is judged. Let no one be unconditionally enthusiastic or unduly rigorous” (P. Corrêa de Oliveira, “Action Française”, O Legionário, no. 359, 30 July 1939). Cf. also ID., “A Action Française e a Liga das Nações”, O Legionário, no. 276, 26 December 1937; ID., “Action Française”, O Legionário, no. 349, 21 May 1938.
141. Cf. for example the special issue of the magazine “Itinéraires”, no. 122, April 1968, dedicated to Maurras, with articles by Jean Madiran, Henri Charlier, Jean Ousset, Pierre Gaxotte, Roger Joseph, V. A. Berto, Henri Rambaud, Gustave Thibon, Jean-Baptiste Morvan, Jacques Vier, Louis Salleron, Georges Lafly, Marcel De Corte.
142. A description of this mentality in the small book La mano che estingue, la voce che addormenta, edited by the Ufficio Tradizione, Famiglia, Proprietà, Rome 1996.
143. For an analysis of this itinerary, Cf. R. de Mattei, Il centro che ci portò a sinistra, Rome, Fiducia, 1994 and the manifesto of the Centro Culturale Lepanto “Prodi il Kerensky italiano?”, Il Tempo and Il Giornale of 14 May 1996. also Giovanni Cantoni, La lezione italiana, Piacenza, Cristianità, 1980.
144. The first Italian translations of the work, for the edizioni dell’Albero, dates to The second, with an introductory essay by G. Cantoni, L’Italia tra Rivoluzione e Contro-Rivoluzione, appeared in 1972 for the editions of Cristianità. The third, with an afterword by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira entitled Rivoluzione e Contro-Rivoluzione vent’anni dopo, in 1977. “In this work — wrote Giovanni Cantoni in his introduction — are all the elements that permit us to define it as an expression in the form of a thesis of counter-revolutionary thinking in the age of the cultural Revolution.” (Introduction, p. 49). Of G. Cantoni Cf. also Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira al servizio di un capitolo della dottrina sociale della Chiesa: il commento del Magistero alla “parabola dei talenti”, Cristianità, no. 235, November 1994.
145. The Centro Culturale Lepanto, founded in Rome in 1982 by the author of these pages, made its mark in Italy and in Europe because of its doctrinal interventions on themes such as the New Concordat (1985), the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), the Islamic danger (1993), the legalisation of homosexual marriage (1994), the denouncement of collaboration between Catholics and neo-Communists in Italy (1995-6).