The accusations of improper “veneration” of Plinio and Dona Lucilia by secularists and progressivists are difficult to understand, but even more so when they come from Catholic circles, especially the “traditionalist” ones.
In fact the twentieth century was the era of the deifying of man, enthroned on altars once dedicated to God. Politicians, sportsmen, singers have all been objects of a cult that can be defined as “fanatic” precisely because its extravagant character has made it stray into idolatry. If an improper form of veneration rendered to men exists, there are also proper forms of veneration such as that reserved for saints or, on a natural level, to particularly distinguished men. Veneration, in its essence, is an act of esteem and in its wider significance is nothing more than the expression of an interior sentiment with which one man recognizes the excellence of another.117 The excellence of the saints renders them worthy of a form of worship called dulia or veneration, different and inferior to the supreme cult of adoration or latria due only to the Most Holy Trinity and to the humanity of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church in defining the precise areas of this veneration admits its legitimacy against the heretical negation of the devotion to the saints.118
Only the Church can establish, in an infallible manner, who is a “saint” and publicly promote his cult. It is lawful however to render, to those who have died in odour of sanctity, a “private” veneration, whose existence is after all a requirement of the ecclesiastical authorities for the processes of beatification and canonization. “Let us honour the servants” pronounced Pope John XV in the most ancient canonization procedure of the Church “so that the honour may return to the Lord, who said ‘He who receives you receives me’ (Mt. 10:40).”119 Lumen Gentium says:
“Every genuine testimony of love to the saints by nature tends to and terminates in Christ himself, ‘the crown of all saints’, and through him in God, who in his saints is recognized as admirable and is glorified.”120
This private cult is none other than the demonstration of devotion that spontaneously flows from the hearts of the faithful before the Church officially pronounces on the merits. Such expressions of devotion, authorized by the Church, are not born suddenly on the morrow of the death. The “odour of sanctity” often surrounds the future saint when he is still alive: it was so for almost all the great saints in the Church, and it is so today for personages that have not yet been canonized. Such is the case of Padre Pio, around whom, while yet alive, an atmosphere of enthusiastic veneration was created, to the point that some even spoke of “fanaticism”.121
To confine ourselves to just one other example, it is sufficient to recall the clamorous enthusiasm that surrounded Don Bosco during his journey to Paris in 1883. Blessed Don Rua made this explicit statement during the Process for the Cause of Beatification:
“If he went into a church to hold a conference, so great was the crowd that gathered that he had to be accompanied by three or four people to open a way for him to reach the pulpit; and often guards had to be put at the doors, to avoid the danger of an accident caused by the crush. If he was seen in the squares or in the streets, he was promptly surrounded by an immense crowd, who knelt in the full light of day to implore his blessing. At his residence, there was a continuous press of people, who considered themselves fortunate to see a saint.”122
We do not intend to deduce the holiness of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira from the demonstrations of admiration and devotion of his disciples, but just to emphasize the full harmony of these expressions of enthusiasm with the doctrine and practice of the Church.
We can understand in this perspective, apart from the tributes of affection that surrounded Dr Plinio even while living, the special veneration that was born within the TFP towards the mother of the founder, Dona Lucilia, after her death.
Dona Lucilia Ribeiro dos Santos led a hidden life until 1967, when for the first time, because of a serious illness that had struck her son, many friends filled her house and were received by her. In this difficult period, she, then 91 years old, extended to the companions of Dr Plinio a welcome that betrayed, as he himself recalls, “her maternal affection, her Christian resignation, her unlimited goodness of heart and the fascinating kindness of the beautiful times of the São Paulo of yesteryear”.123 Young people were enchanted by her character that was so simple and affectionate: “The faint and beautiful light of both dusk and dawn were always to be found in her smile”.124
A few months later, on 21 April 1968, Dona Lucilia died.125 For sixty years she had offered an example of a daily exercise of virtue, from which her son drew strength and example. She showed that perfection in ordinary life which is the secret of the “little way” outlined by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.126 Even within the home, a “little way” to holiness is in fact possible and, according to all those who knew her, Dona Lucilia’s long life was a living example of this.
The comparison between Lucilia Ribeiro dos Santos and the Carmelite of Lisieux is not surprising. Without the publication of The Story of a Soul, no one would have ever imagined the heights of holiness and love of God attained by a nun during the ordinary life of a convent, who died at the age of 24. In the case of Dona Lucilia it was not a book that revealed the splendours of her soul to us, but the life of her son, as a mirror that reflects and develops her virtues.
After her death, someone in the TFP thought of appealing to the intercession of Dona Lucilia and, spontaneously and mysteriously, a private cult began to flourish around her tomb.127
To ask someone’s intercession clearly does not signify officially proclaiming their holiness. A great contemporary theologian and spiritual guide such as Father Royo Marín, after carefully studying the biography of Dona Lucilia, did not however hesitate to state that this work describes “the life of a real saint, in every sense of the word”.128
Notes:
117. Luigi Oldani, Culto, in EC, vol. IV, 1950, col. 1040, col. 1040-4.
118. The legitimacy and utility of the cult of the saints was defined by the Council of Trent in its XXV session (Denz.-H, 1821-4). Cf. also P. Sejourné, Saints (culte des), in DTC, vol. XIV, 1939, col. 870-978; Justo Collantes S.J., La fede della Chiesa cattolica, (Vatican City, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), pp. 577-90.
119. John XV, Encyclical Cum conventus esset, of 3 February 993 to the bishops and abbots of France and of Germany for the canonization of Bishop Ulrich of Augusta, in Denz.-H, no. 675.
120. Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, of 21 November 1964, in Denz.-H, no. 4170.
121. “The groups of Padre Pio” in particular were stamped as fanatics because of their “veneration” and were denounced for superstition and disobedience by the ecclesiastical authorities. They are still active and widespread. This did not prevent the opening on 20 March 1983, at the request of the Polish episcopate, of the cause for the beatification of the Capuchin from Pietrelcina which is still in process. Rino Cammilleri, Storia di Padre Pio, (Casale Monferrato, Piemme, 1993), pp. 169- 82.
122. Giovanni Battista Lemoyne, Vita di San Giovanni Bosco, (Turin, Società Editrice Internazionale, 1977), 528. Cf. also Don Bosco nella storia della cultura popolare, edited by Francesco Traniello, Turin, SEI, 1987.
123. O Estado de S. Paulo, 22 August 1979.
124. J. S. Clá Dias, Dona Lucilia, vol. III, p. 187.
125. Dona Lucilia died on the eve of completing 92 years, on 21 April 1968. “With her eyes wide open, understanding perfectly well the solemn moment that approached, she raised herself up a bit, made a big sign of the cross and, with entire peace of soul and confidence in the Divine mercy, she slept in the Lord”. J. S. Clá Dias, Dona Lucilia, vol. III, p. 201.
126. “In my little way there is only room for ordinary It is necessary that what I do, little souls can also do.” St Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Gli scritti, (Rome, Postulazione Generale dei Carmelitani Scalzi, 1979), no. 227, pp. 216-217). On the “little way”, cf. André Combes, Introduction à la spiritualité de S. Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus. Etudes de théologie et histoire de la spiritualité, Paris, Vrin, 1946.
127. The Brazilian TFP was accused of having wanted to promote an improper cult to the mother of its founder through the recital of some litanies addressed to her (for an exhaustive refutation of these accusations cf. G. A. Solimeo, Un comentário anti-TFP. Estudo acerca de um Parecer concernente a uma Ladainha, appendix to Refutação da TFP a uma investida frustra, pp. 391-463). In fact, for some time, a litany with invocations to Dona Lucilia circulated among some volunteers of the association. This had been composed by two youths in late 1977. The litany was prohibited by Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira as soon as he heard about it due to the impropriety of its language and the strangeness of expression, clearly due to the young age and inexperience of its authors. Father Vittorino Rodríguez, after examining it, commented: “Various invocations are rather naïve, others too extravagant or technical and others quite ambiguous, hence the misunderstanding. For all these reasons I think it was opportune that Doctor Plinio prohibited them. Nevertheless, I think that it is an exaggeration to describe some invocations as heterodox or blasphemous, without considering the relativity of the language used in them” (Refutação da TFP a uma investida frustra, p. 395). If the Association, moreover, had wished to promote and organize such a cult, it would have done so in quite a different way, more suited to it. After all, what should we think about a young nun, who invoked and had her fellow sisters invoke their spiritual director who had just died with a series of litanies, in which, calling him “St Claude”, she defined him as: “mirror of all virtues”, “living image of perfection”, “stream of divine consolations”, “field of the Paradise of the Church”, “lily planted in virgin earth”, “shrine of graces”, “whose tongue was like the voice of the Holy Spirit” , “sun of perfection”, “seed of the Gospel”, “voice of the apostles”, “torch of the world”, “shield of the Catholic faith”? The litanies are those that Margaret Mary Alacoque composed and had recited in the convent for her spiritual director, Claude de la Colombière, who had just died. The nun would become a great saint and her spiritual director would be canonized by the Church, but only many years after the litanies were prepared. The censors of the Court that examined the cause of beatification of the two saints did not judge that this fact would have damaged their canonization. They thus demonstrated that wisdom of the Church which its children so often lack when animated by zeal rather than by true charity and love for good.
128. J. S. Clá Dias, Dona Lucilia, vol. I, p. 9. “The real question is: Was Dona Lucilia a real saint, in the fullest sense of the word? In other words, did her Christian virtues reach the heroic degree indispensably required for someone to be acknowledged by the Church with a beatification or canonisation? In face of the rigorously historical data with which this biography provides us in such abundance — concludes Father Royo Marín — I dare to answer a resounding ‘yes’, and without any vacillation .” ibid, vol. I, p. 11.