Gas Station, Lawyer, and Potatoes – Folha de S. Paulo, July 18, 1971

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

My car pulled into a gas station to fill up. I remained seated in the car while the attendant pumped the gas. My eyes unintentionally drifted to two well-dressed people standing next to another car, also being refueled. One of them was short, stout, lively-eyed, and talkative. The other was tall and slender, with a worried and distant look, and appeared somewhat aloof.

The short man looked at me and said something to his companion. They exchanged a few quick words, which I couldn’t hear. Immediately after, the short man lit a cigarette and walked toward me, with his companion following a little behind.

“Professor,” he said affably, “may I have a word with you?” I was in a hurry, but I managed to sound friendly as I gave the usual reply: “Of course, with pleasure.”

My interlocutor took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, an opaque mixture of smoke and mist. It was clear that he had just formed his thoughts.

“I’m a lawyer,” he told me. “I lead the Legal Department at X — S/A, whose managing director is here.”

The director and I exchanged greetings, and the short man kept talking.

“I read your last two articles in Folha de S. Paulo about Father Comblin’s recent book. Of course, I don’t agree with the priest. Does that mean I agree with you? I’m sorry, but no. I disagree at least in part because you seem to want ecclesiastical penalties applied to Father Comblin, such as removing him from his teaching position. Perhaps you wouldn’t even mind if the government banned the Belgian priest from the country, at least for a few years.

“Well, with my legal training, this seems unacceptable. Someone can be punished for subversive acts, including incitement to subversion. But the simple preaching of communist ideas must be free, as this is inherent in academic freedom and freedom of thought. I am surprised that you, a lawyer like me, do not think so.”

I waited patiently for my verbose colleague to unravel the thread of his thoughts. And I replied:

“Dear sir, your argument is often used to oppose applying penalties by the temporal authority. The Church is a spiritual society based on orthodoxy, just as a state is founded on territory. To violate orthodoxy is to commit a crime against the Church, similar to how breaching a state’s borders is a crime against the state. It is as lawful for the Church to defend itself against heterodoxy as it is for the state to defend itself against invaders. And since the Church is a spiritual society, it is natural for it to use spiritual penalties in its legitimate self-defense. One of these is removing the heterodox transgressor from the positions of trust granted to him by the Church.”

The industrialist acted uninterested, but I noticed he paid close attention to everything we said.

The lawyer, on the contrary, was very engaged in the issue and immediately responded: “But what if heterodox ideas do not incite subversion?”

I replied: “What is subversion in the Church? First and foremost, it is the spread of error.”

Unwilling to give up, my colleague replied, discreetly changing the subject: “If the judiciary proves the guilt of subversive priests, and the Church takes canonical measures against them, fine. But for mere ideas… that’s a stretch!”

As you can see, he was trying to shift from the Comblin case to other cases. I wanted to keep him focused on the original topic, for which I had the answer ready: “By divine mandate, the Church has the right and duty to punish error. It cannot delegate this power to a judge appointed by the State. It is non-transferable. In the case of Father Comblin, these are doctrinal errors, which are for the Church to classify as such and to punish. In the case of the priests accused of complicity with terrorism, the hierarchy decided to wait for the state courts to rule, claiming that it did not want to act without evidence.”

The short lawyer interrupted me: “Of course. The hierarchy could not have done otherwise.”

“Not quite,” I pondered. “Since the Church and the State are sovereign entities, each in its own domain, the former could have subjected the suspected priests to an ecclesiastical trial for church purposes. But let’s say it didn’t because it lacked the investigative tools the State has. Fine. However, in Father Comblin’s case, it’s not for the Church to investigate his involvement with terror but only the orthodoxy of the ideas he spreads. And these are in his book. Just open it and read. They are the same as in the scandalous study he published in 1968. So why not act?”

The industrialist was evidently annoyed, but he always seemed detached and uninterested. However, we both agreed on one thing: we were eager to proceed with our business.

My colleague, the lawyer, was in no rush and insisted: “Yes, but ideas are ideas. Doctrines…” and he was about to start a new digression.

I tried to interrupt: “But what do you call ‘ideas’? The thesis that the Gospel is the foundation of social revolution is—in your sense—an idea. A teacher spreads it freely among ten, twenty, or a hundred young people, and nothing happens to him. On the other hand, ten or twenty of these young people take the idea seriously and join a subversive movement. I ask: Who is primarily responsible if subversion occurs? Isn’t it the teacher? Can this reality be ignored?”

On both sides, the cars’ tanks were full, the bills paid, and the chauffeurs ready, waiting for the order to depart.

At this point, the industrialist interrupted: “I don’t get involved in these doctrinal discussions. Problems are not solved with theoretical debates among lawyers, but through action. Not by debating principles, but by filling stomachs. If someone is unhappy, fill their stomach, and everything is resolved.” He said goodbye to me and, with quiet authority, took the lawyer by the arm, a little like guiding a naughty boy to class.

I didn’t respond to the industrialist. If all ideas should be answered with food, why give him arguments? Wouldn’t it be better to give him sandwiches? I had no sandwiches on hand.

I kept my eyes fixed on the industrialist as they walked away, and my car started up. A line by Claudel came to mind about a certain kind of man who wishes for the stars to fall from the sky and turn into potatoes…