“Rome” one of the leaders of modernism had written at the beginning of the century “cannot be destroyed in a day, but it should be allowed to fall into dust and ashes gradually and inoffensively; then we would have a new religion and a new Decalogue.”139 How can we fail to see in what subsequently happened an attempt to fulfil this sinister “prophecy”?
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira sensed this process of dissolution within the Church, he suffered from it deeply and used all his energy to oppose it, convinced as he was that there was no salvation outside union with the Papacy.
“It is a sign and condition of spiritual health that the faithful, in everything pertaining to the safety, glory and tranquillity of the Roman Pontificate, be extremely sensitive and have a most delicate and lively sensibility. After love of God, this is one of the highest loves that Religion teaches us. (…) Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia — where St. Peter is, there is the Church. The Catholic Church is so linked with the Chair of St. Peter that where no Papal approval exists, Catholicism does not exist. The true faithful knows that the Pope synthesizes and contains in himself the whole Catholic Church. And this is so real and indissoluble that, if by some absurdity all the Bishops of the world, all the priests, all the faithful abandoned the Supreme Pontiff, the true Catholics would gather around him. Because all holiness, all authority, all supernatural virtue, absolutely everything the Church has, without exception without conditions or restrictions, is subordinated, conditioned, dependent on union with the Chair of St. Peter. The most sacred institutions, the most venerable works, the holiest traditions, the most conspicuous people, everything that can genuinely and loftily express Catholicism and adorn the Church of God, all this would become null, cursed, sterile, worthy of eternal fire and the wrath of God if it be separated from the Roman Pontiff.”140
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira constantly, to the very end, reaffirmed this love for the Papacy:
“Today I do not stand before the Holy See with the enthusiasm of my youth, but with an even greater, a much greater enthusiasm. In fact, to the extent that I live, think and gain experience, I increasingly understand and love the Pope and the Papacy.”141
The history of the twentieth century is that of the progressive revelation of a tragedy. At the centre of the drama, is the Holy Catholic Church, apparently submerged by the waves of a terrible storm miraculously sustained by the infallible promise of its Divine Founder. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira saw in this tragedy the Passion of the Church, reflected in the history of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. “How many are they who live in union with the Church during this moment that is tragic as the Passion was tragic, this crucial moment of history when all mankind is choosing to be for Christ or against Christ?”142 He had dedicated his life to the Church,143 and to it he gave himself with all the generosity of Veronica.
“The representation of the Divine Face” he wrote “was made on the veil as in a painting. In the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, His Face is reflected as in a mirror.
“In her institutions, in her doctrine, in her laws, in her unity, in her universality, in her unsurpassable catholicity, the Church is a true mirror in which our Divine Saviour is reflected.
“And we, all of us, have the grace of belonging to the Church, of being living stones of the Church!
“How we ought to give thanks for this favour! Let us not forget, however, that noblesse oblige. Belonging to the Church is a very great and very demanding thing. We must think as the Church thinks, have the Mind of the Church, proceed as the Church wishes in all the circumstances of our lives. This supposes a real Catholic sense, an authentic and complete purity of customs, and a profound and sincere piety. In other words it supposes the sacrifice of an entire lifetime.
“And what is the reward? ‘Christianus alter Christus.’ I will be in an eminent way a reproduction of Christ Himself. The likeness of Christ, vivid and sacred, will be imprinted on my own soul.”144
Notes:
138. The Dominican, Father Roger Thomas Calmel, in an article that appeared in the number of November 1971 of Itinéraires, dealing with the problem of assistance at the New Mass, affirmed that “the conditions of legal obligation have been annulled”, while there remained the serious obligation to openly confess one’s faith in the Catholic Mass (“L’assistance à la Messe suivie de l’apologie pour le Canon Romain”, Itinéraires, no. 157, November 1971, p. 6). Cf. also A Missa Nova: um caso de consciência, compilado sob a responsabilidade dos padres tradicionalistas da Diocese de Campos, São Paulo, Artpress, 1982.
139. George Tyrrell, Lettres a Henri Brémond, (Paris, Aubier, 1971), p. 287.
140. P. Corrêa de Oliveira, “A guerra e o Corpo Místico”, O Legionário, no. 610, 16 April 1944.
141. P. Corrêa de Oliveira, Il crepuscolo artificiale del Cile cattolico, (Piacenza, Cristianità, 1973), p. 21.
142. P. Corrêa de Oliveira, “Via Sacra, VIII estação”, Catolicismo, no. 3, March 1981, En. tr. The Way of the Cross, (York, The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, 1990), eighth station, p. 37.
143. On the night of 1 February 1975, in a meeting with members of the TFP, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira heroically offered himself to Our Lady to suffer for the TFP in the interests of Holy Mother Church. Just 36 hours later, he was seriously injured in a road accident, near Jundiaí. The serious consequences of this accident lasted until the end of his life: they consisted of twenty years of crosses borne with a resolute and manly soul.
144. P. Corrêa de Oliveira, The Way of the Cross, sixth station, pp. 28-9.