Facts and Comments – Folha de S. Paulo, July 29, 1973
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
As widely reported in the press, 17 guerrillas kidnapped 278 students, teachers, staff, and nurses from a mission run by the Society of Jesus in the jungles of Mukubura, in Rhodesia.
According to the mission’s superior, Fr. E. Rojek, the crime occurred during the school’s nighttime hours. The kidnapped youths were ages 13 to 18. The kidnappers said the students would be taken to Communist China, where they would be trained as guerrillas.
The kidnapping occurred just 60 km from the Mozambique border.
Fortunately, thanks to the decisive action of the Rhodesian authorities and a lack of resources, the kidnappers were forced to gradually release their victims, leaving only 17 in their custody.
One can imagine the fear and deprivation of all kinds to which these cruelly abducted people were subjected, as well as the terrible anguish of the families of the innocent victims.
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This serious crime against clearly identified individuals at a precisely specified location is highly reprehensible and meets all the criteria for provoking the indignation of compassionate people.
However, Catholic and non-Catholic leftists have remained silent about this crime while raising a chorus of universal protest against a massacre allegedly committed in an unidentified location in Mozambique, with unidentified victims.
The organizers of this universal lament are heartbroken over the fate of victims who may not even exist. Most Rev. Custódio Alvim Pereira, Archbishop of Lourenço Marques, told the Hamburg newspaper Die Welt categorically that the alleged massacre did not take place.
Compassion directed entirely toward an inauthentic crime, which remains glacially silent about the authentic crime, is characteristically inauthentic.
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This leads us to respectfully but deeply deplore the fact that Paul VI has lent his voice to this lamentation chorus orchestrated by leftist propaganda, thereby engaging the Church’s prestige. He did so in such terms that Mr. Dutra Faria, director of the official Portuguese news agency ANI, felt compelled to declare: “We must say to the Pope, with all due respect, and with all seriousness and energy, that we do not consider ourselves a people of criminals.”
Our admirable and beloved Portugal, a nation of criminals!
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We would better understand if the common Father of Christians had directed his compassion elsewhere and shown solidarity with the indignation of the whole world at the fact that seven Iron Curtain guards fired on three unfortunate people who were legitimately trying to escape from the communist hell to West Berlin.
As is well known, Berliners in the free zone staged a violent protest in this regard, also directed against recent Soviet “improvements” to the Berlin Wall, including automatic machine guns.
This famous wall delimits the largest prison in history, the immense, gloomy, and melancholic region whose inhabitants are forbidden to travel and which admits only a few visitors under strict surveillance!
I believe the whole world would rejoice if Paul VI were to use this recent crime as an opportunity to protest the wall and mobilize world opinion to demand its destruction. The moment could not be more propitious, since the Soviets, in need of all kinds of aid from the West, have every interest in avoiding a contradiction with Western opinion. They fear that doing so would force their governments to restrict the generous assistance they provide to the red tyrants, thereby helping those tyrants remain in power.
But the communists know very well this sad and miserable world we live in. Far from fearing that any authoritative voice would rise against them, they have insolently challenged Western opinion by decorating the soldiers who shot the poor would-be refugees.
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My Catholic soul rejoices at the attitude of Cardinal John Carmel Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster. During Mass in his cathedral, in the presence of the glorious Cardinal Mindszenty, he declared that the West neither knows nor wants to know that religious persecution has increased in recent months in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. The English prelate took the opportunity to challenge the communists to invite Cardinal Mindszenty to return to Hungary if they want to demonstrate that their intentions for peace are sincere.
These words of apostolic frankness and Christian courage truly comfort the soul of every clear-sighted Catholic.
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As this sinister contemporary tragedy unfolds, Cardinal Silva Henriquez, Archbishop of Santiago, is promoting a dialogue between communists and Christian Democrats to keep Marxist Allende in power.
The cardinal claims that his policy is motivated by the need to avoid civil war. But one must ask whether his policy is not provoking civil war.
In fact, if Allende’s government remains in power, Chile will continue to descend into the abyss of misery. According to Cardinal Silva Henriquez’s counterparts around the world, namely Catholic leftists, people reduced to misery will eventually revolt and even have the right to do so.
Conversely, if the bishops’ enormous influence aligned with the powerful anticommunist opposition in Parliament and among the Chilean people, everything suggests that Allende would be forced to resign in ignominy.
