“In idealism, zeal. In manners, courtesy.
In action, dedication without limits. In the presence of the enemy, prudence.
In the fight, pride and courage. And with courage, victory”
Having reached full maturity, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira decided to give the family of souls that surrounded him and shared his ideals the form of an association. On 26 July 1960 the Sociedade Brasileira de Defesa da Tradição, Família e Propriedade1 was founded in São Paulo, the first of a series of associations inspired by his thinking that were gradually founded over the five continents.2
The trilogy, Tradition, Family, Property, apart from indicating the associations founded and inspired by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, summarizes his conception of the world which in turn reflects the foundations of the social doctrine of the Church.3
Real tradition, the Brazilian thinker writes, presupposes two principles:
“a) that every authentic and living order of things has within itself an on-going impulse towards improvement and perfection;
“b) that, for this reason, true progress does not consist in destroying, but, rather, adding; it does not consist in breaking links, but continuing ever higher.
“In short, tradition is the sum of the past with the present having an affinity with it.
Today should not be the denial of yesterday, but its harmonic continuation.”4
Tradition, from the Latin “tradere”, does not therefore mean mere attachment to the past, but transmission of a wealth of values from one generation to another.5
“The tradition we represent is Catholic Tradition. It is a tradition full of life. An ardent natural and supernatural life.”6 In order to develop, what is alive needs a favourable environment. The natural environment for the transmission and development of values is the family which, as the Church teaches, is “the fundamental cell, the constituent element of the community of the State”.7 But to survive and develop, the family, in its turn, needs a material foundation that guarantees its life and freedom. For this reason, Pius XI, in his encyclical Quadragesimo anno, states that “Man’s natural right of possessing private property, and transmitting it by inheritance, must remain intact and inviolate, and cannot be taken away by the State”.8
Max Delespesse, a famous Belgian progressivist, in a book with the significant title: Tradition, Famille, Propriété. Jésus et la triple contestation (Tradition, Family, Property. Jesus and the threefold contestation), notes:
“Certain superficial observers might be amazed at the trinomial tradition-family-property, as if these really did not go together. In fact, the union of these three terms is not at all casual. (…) Tradition, family, property is a coherent block that one accepts or refuses, but whose elements cannot be separated”.9
The most radical refusal of this doctrinal block was expressed, during our time, by Socialism and Communism whose basic principles, according to the Russian mathematician Igor Safarevic,10 may be summed up in these points:
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abolition of private property;
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abolition of the family;
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destruction of religion;
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equality, suppression of social
The formula TFP, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira affirms in his turn, comprises “the three great principles denied by modern collectivism”, which opposed it with a similarly significant trinomial: “massification – servitude – hunger”.11
Notes:
1. The beginning of the public activity of the TFP dates to 25 July 1963, when the association officially took over all the activities that had up to then been controlled by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira personally, and by his collaborators of the group of Catolicismo. Up to his death, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira was president of the Brazilian TFP while the vice- president, also until his death, was Prof. Fernando Furquim de Almeida (1913-81).
2. TFP, similar bodies or representative bureaux were founded in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay (1967), Perú (1970), Colombia, Venezuela, Spain (1971), Ecuador, United States (1973), Bolivia, France, Portugal (1974), Canada (1975), Italy (1976), South Africa (1980), Germany, Australia (1982), Costa Rica (1983), New Zealand (1985), Philippines (1986), Paraguay (1987), The United Kingdom (1989), India (1992), Poland (1995), Japan, Guatemala (1996).
3. Its “fundamental lines — as Pius XII states — were and still are the same: the family and property as the basis of personal provision; then, as complementary factors of security, local bodies and professional unions, and lastly the State”. Pius XII, Christmas radiomessage of 24 December 1955, in DR, vol. XVII, pp. 437-8.
4. P. Corrêa de Oliveira, “TFP. Tradição”, Folha de S. Paulo, 12 March 1969. Cf. also ID., Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, pp. 52-3.
5. Pius XII taught well how there is no real progress outside tradition. “The word itself is etymologically synonymous with advancement and forward movement — synonymous, but not identical. Whereas, in fact, progress means only a forward march, step by step, in search of an uncertain furture, tradition also signifies a forward march, but a continuous march as well, a movement equally brisk and tranquil, in accordance with life’s laws (…). As the word itself implies, tradition is a gift handed down from generation to generation, the torch that at each relay one runner places in and entrusts to the hand of the next, without the race slowing down or coming to a halt. Tradition and progress complement each other so harmoniously that, just as tradition without progress would be a contradiction in terms, so progress without tradition would be a foolhardy proposition, a leap into darkness”. Speech to the Roman aristocracy and nobility of 19 January 1944, in Nobility and Analogous Traditioinal Elites, p. 53.
6. P. Corrêa de Oliveira, Speech of 3 January 1992, Catolicismo, no. 494, February 1992.
7. Pius XII, Address to French fathers of families of 18 September 1951, in DR, vol. XIII, p. 242.
8. Pius XI, Encyclical Quadragesimo anno of 15 May 1931, in AAS, 1931, 23, pp. 190-216. Cf. Denz.-H, no. 3728.
9. Max Delespesse, Tradition, Famille, Propriété. Jésus et la triple contestation, (Paris, Fleurus, 1972), 7, 8.
10. Igor Chafarevitch, Il socialismo come fenomeno storico mondiale, It. tr. (Milan, La Casa di Matriona, 1980), p. 267.
11. P. Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, p. 109.