During his long life, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira had great admirers, especially in the ecclesiastic field.99 Among these were distinguished defenders of the faith such as Cardinals Slipyj100 and Mindzsenty, eminent cardinals such as Aloisi Masella, Pizzardo, Staffa, Ciappi, Echeverría Ruíz, Stickler, Oddi, and theologians of international fame, such as Fathers Anastasio Gutiérrez, Victorino Rodríguez, Antonio Royo Marín.
“All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus” warns St Paul, however “will be persecuted.”101 It is difficult to find the founder of a Catholic Institution who has not suffered slander and persecutions. An obvious example is St Ignatius who was accused of being an “enlightened person” and underwent eight trials before the foundation of his order. Even after pontifical approval, the School of Theology of Paris, which three centuries before had condemned the mendicant orders, criticized the “novelty” of the Society of Jesus, accusing it of disturbing the religious peace and of having been born to destroy rather than to build. The same Society of Jesus was suppressed by the Pontifical authorities from 1773 to 1814, in the critical years that saw the explosion of the French Revolution.102
One moment spread by word of mouth, the next amplified by the media, slander is an ancient arm of the Revolution, which uses it to try to demolish the credibility of its opponents. “Lie, Lie, something will remain”, was the notorious motto attributed to Voltaire.
Even more than his thinking, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira’s work suffered misunderstandings and slander. The slander which refers to the very person of the founder of the TFP, may be summarized in the accusation of having wanted to establish, within this association, a cult to his person and to that of his mother, Dona Lucilia.103 The principal misunderstandings concern his specific vocation and that of the TFP: the struggle to defend and restore Christian social order, according to the great comission of the Pontifical Magisterium.
These accusations came from the most varied sectors, but mainly from two opposite ones: the Socialist-Communists,104 and from some circles of the “traditionalist” right.105 This really defamatory typhoon was ably channelled by the so-called “anti-Cult movement”. Back in 1985, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira revealed its totalitarian and anti-Christian nature in an introduction he wrote to a study on “brainwashing”.106
One of the first and most violent “media uproars”107 started in Rio Grande do Sul in 1975 while the TFP was involved in spreading the Pastoral Letter of Bishop de Castro Mayer On the Indissolubility of Marriage. This same Brazilian bishop intervened openly in defence of the defamed association with a letter of protest from which we give here a meaningful passage:
“This campaign is the vehicle for such injustice that I cannot abstain from formulating my protest against it. A protest, in my case, is all the more imperious since, considering my relationship with the TFP, the campaign strikes at my honour as a bishop of Holy Mother Church. (…)
If, then, the TFP were subversive, nazi-fascist, and a disturber of public order. If it separated, against the natural order, children from their parents, what should be said of a bishop who maintains constant contact with this Society, who knows every aspect of its activities, and accepts, willingly, the society’s offer of spreading our pastoral letter against divorce which stands up for the rights of God over human society? Such a bishop would be an accomplice and even be in collusion with them.”108
The most virulent attacks against the TFP were subsequently dealt in France (1979),109 Venezuela (1984),110 again in Brazil (1993)111 and in Spain (1995). This last persecution, promoted by the already mentioned “Anti-Cult movement”, resulted in the “kidnapping” of a young Spanish member of the TFP, Santiago Canals Coma, whom they wanted to “de- programme” with brutal methods to “restore him” to his family.112
On that occasion Father Antonio Royo Marín, one of the greatest contemporary theologians, felt it his duty to publicly intervene in defence of the Spanish TFP with these words:
“There have been many occasions that have given me the opportunity of knowing the TFP thoroughly as well as several of its principal members around the world, including its organization, how it is run, its fights, its growth and its victories. They are all exemplary practising Catholics. They attend Mass, receive Communion daily, pray the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary every day as well as other pious devotions, all of which are traditional and commonly practised within Holy Mother Church. They do not perform any strange or obsolete ceremony, but rather they all are in total harmony with the most authentic Roman Catholic spirit. They have a great veneration for the Holy Father who they consider the Vicar of Christ and His supreme representative in the world. They are deeply devoted to the Virgin Mary and are convinced that, in the end, her Immaculate Heart will triumph throughout the world as promised at Fatima.”113
The underlying theme of the accusations is the disparaging qualification of “cult”, of which in numerous writings the TFPs have shown to be groundless.114 Among the illustrious personages who defended the TFP from this slander, surreptitiously directed against the Catholic Church itself, are Cardinal Alfons Stickler115 and Cardinal Bernardino Echeverría Ruíz. The latter, in a letter to the President of the French Chamber Philippe Séguin, expressed his “profound perplexity before this injurious amalgam aimed at an upright association composed of Catholics animated by a great love for God and their fellow men”.116
Notes:
99. Neither Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, nor his work was ever officially censored by the Church. Nor can the critical note of the Brazilian Episcopal Conference published on 19 April 1985, as a press release and not as an ecclesiastical decree, be considered censorship. the reply of the TFP that appeared in Folha de S. Paulo and other dailies on 24 April 1985; cf. also G. A. Solimeo e L. S. Solimeo, Analyse par la TFP brésilienne d’une prise de position de la CNBB sur la ‘TFP et sa famille d’âmes’, Paris, Société Française pour la Défense de la Tradition, Famille et Propriété, 1989; cf. also The NCBB note on the Brazilian TFP: Unfounded statements, Biased and impassioned assessments, London, Tradition, Family, Property — Bureau for the United Kingdom, 1997.
100. The Ukrainian Cardinal Josep Slipyj was the guest of the TFP in São Paulo on 26 September Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, on that occasion, gave a reception in his honour, with the participation of important members of the clergy, of the Armed Forces and of Paulista society. cf. Catolicismo, no. 215, November 1968.
101. 2 Tim. 3:10-13.
102. On the suppression of the Society of Jesus, with the brief Dominus ac Redemptor of Clement XIV, of 22 July 1773, cf. Paul Dudon J., De la suppression de la Compagnie de Jésus (1758-1773), in “Revue des questions historiques”, vol. 132, 1938, pp. 75-107. “The real cause” of this suppression, Henri de Bonald wrote in 1827, “was resentment against religious and monarchical power, which found solid support in that order that educated young people”. H. de Bonald, Risposta a nuove offese contro una celebre Compagnia, It. tr., (Imola, Tip. Galeati, 1827), p. 52.
103. On this claim of “improper” veneration of Prof Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, the work published by the TFP in his defence: A. A. Borelli Machado; A. Sinke Guimarães; G. A. Solimeo; J. S. Clá Dias, Refutação da TFP a uma investida frustra, São Paulo, Sociedade Brasileira de Defesa da Tradição, Família e Propriedade, 1984, vol. I, pp. 155-229; and the two press releases “A TFP afirma sua posição doutrinária e interpela opositor”, Folha de S. Paulo, 17 August 1984; and “Voltando as costas a uma controvérsia”, Folha de S. Paulo, 28 August 1984.
104. During the month of February 1976, in four successive transmissions of its programme Escucha Chile, Radio Moscow attacked the Chilean TFP with regard to the book The Church of Silence in Chile which it had just published. On 20 November 1984, the newspaper Izvestia, official voice of the Soviet government, showed its full solidarity with the publicity attack which targeted the Asociación Civil Resistencia, sister association of the TFP in Venezuela, and the TFP Bureau in Caracas.
105. Prof Massimo Introvigne raises an hypothesis that he defines as “disturbing” or perhaps “malicious”: “Particularly, but not only, in France, in recent years, various ‘Lefebvrian’ and ‘Sedevacantist’ publications have conducted campaigns against ‘cults’ with particularly violent tones. If it were just, or mainly, a case of the defence of traditional Catholic doctrine, there would be no cause for wonder. But, in point of fact, this literature makes its own the arguments of the lay anti-cult movement, and willingly attacks realities of the Catholic world such as the TFP and Opus Dei. Therefore, a legitimate suspicion assails us that the anti-cult movement uses certain ‘Lefebvrian’ and ‘Sedevacantist’ groups as advance troops, as wreckers, to throw into the fray, for the first bayonet charge; and, naturally, to be sacrificed at the opportune moment, since, by adopting the usual criteria of the anti-cult movement, these groups can be easily, in turn, disqualified as ‘cults’ when, and to the extent, necessary”. M. Introvigne, ‘Sette’ e ‘diritto di persecuzione’: le ragioni di una controversia, in G. Cantoni, M. Introvigne, Libertà Religiosa, ‘Sette’ e ‘Diritto’ di persecuzione, (Piacenza, Cristianità, 1996), p. 106.
106. The study appeared in number 409 (January 1985) of Catolicismo with the title ‘Lavagem cerebral’ — um mito ao serviço da nova ‘Inquisição terapêutica’. Cf. also David G. Bromley, The Brainwashing. Deprogramming Controversy: Sociological, Psychological, Legal and Historical Perspectives, New York- Toronto, The Edwin Mellen Press, 1983. In May 1987, the American Psychological Association in turn declared the theory of “brain-washing” applied to religious movements as “non scientific”. cf. M. Introvigne, “L’Opus Dei e il movimento anti-sette”, Cristianità, no. 229, May 1994.
107. The term was coined by Dr. Plinio himself to indicate the organized public calumny that was being moved against the TFP.
108. Letter of Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer published in 294, June 1975, of Catolicismo. The TFP reacted in turn with the document A TFP em legitima defesa, published in the newspapers and in the special issue (June 1975) of the same magazine.
109. This was an anonymous libel, as calumnious as it was superficial and lacking in that logic which is the pride of French intelligence, to which the TFP replied with a work in two volumes entitled Imbroglio, Détraction, Délire. Remarques sur un Rapport concernant les TFP, Paris, Association Française pour la Défense de la Tradition, de la Famille, de la Propriété, 1979. In spite of this response-document, the libel, known as “rapport Joyeux” from the name of the person subsequently discovered to be its author, continued to be quoted and spread in semi-clandestine publications against the TFP.
110. This persecution led, with a governmental decree of 13 November 1984, to the closure in Venezuela, of the Asociación Civil Resistencia, an autonomous body, but linked to the TFPs in 14 countries. In 1985, to defend itself from other attacks, the TFP published a work by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Guerreiros da Virgem — A réplica da Autenticidade, A TFP sem segredos, São Paulo, Editora Vera Cruz, 1985 and the book by A. Sinke Guimarães, Servitudo ex Caritate, São Paulo, Artpress, 1985.
111. The TFP replied with an article entitled Usando o mesmo realejo, mais uma vez investe contra a TFP o tablóide de Zero hora. A TFP se defende, that appeared in Correio do Povo of 19 February 1993.
112. Santiago Canals Coma, ¿Renace la persecución religiosa en España? Historia de un secuestro, Zaragoga, Editorial Ramiro el Monje, “Before God — testifies the same kidnapped person — I affirm solemnly that I never heard a word or witnessed a gesture of Prof Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira which did not bring me closer to God our Lord, to the Most Blessed Virgin and to the Roman Pontiff. In the end, to the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, our beloved Mother, whose invisible head is Our Lord Jesus Christ.” ibid, p. 17.
113. “Vehemente desmentido del Padre Royo Marín a la indigna campaña de calumnias contra F.P.-Covadonga”, La Vanguardia of 27 July 1995. Father Antonio Royo Marín O.P., Preacher General of the Dominican Order, is author of 26 works of theology and Catholic doctrine. His defence of the Church and the Papacy was rewarded with the medal “Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice” given to him by Pope John Paul II.
114. Cf. the important book by G.A. Solimeo and L.S. Solimeo, La nouvelle inquisition athée et psychiatrique. Elle taxe de secte ceux qu’elle veut détruire, Paris, Société Française pour la Defense de la Tradition, Famille et Proprieté, 1991, and the similarly clear related contribution by Benoît Bemelmans, Le rapport Guyard à la lumière de la doctrine catholique et du droit français, Paris, Société Française pour la défense de la Tradition, Famille et Propriété, 1996. This work is a clear refutation of the “Rapport” on the cults in France, launched by the Assemblée nationale in December 1995.
115. Cf. the preface to this book.
116. Text in B. Bemelmans, Le Rapport Guyard, pp. 17-18.