Lightning and Fireflies: Closing Thoughts – Folha de S. Paulo, January 6, 1980
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Today, I finish my previous commentary on the correspondence between Bishops Luciano Duarte, Ivo Lorscheiter, and Luciano Mendes de Almeida.
A dense mystery has long shrouded the atmosphere of Catholic Brazil. For eleven years, protests against communist infiltration within Catholic circles have erupted periodically. The rumblings are followed by a buzz, then silence. Why this inaction? Let us revisit the facts.
1968 (July-August). In a TFP-sponsored petition, 1,600,368 Catholics request Paul VI, then in Medellin, to take action against communist infiltration in the Church, causing a stir. Response: silence.
1969 (July-August). A special edition of the monthly magazine Catolicismo (the TFP distributes 165,000 copies of it across the country) denounces IDOC and the “Prophetic Groups,” semi-clandestine international organizations promoting communism and progressivism within the Church. Buzz. Silence.
1969 (November). The Marighela affair erupts. The TFP widely distributes a statement expressing its dismay at the participation of Dominican priests in the terrorist conspiracy led by Carlos Marighela.
1972 (November). The bishop of Campos, Antônio de Castro Mayer, gives a sensational interview to the Folha de S. Paulo daily about his Pastoral Letter on Cursillos in Christianity, warning Catholic opinion about leftist tendencies in some Cursillo circles. In 120 days, the TFP sold 93,000 copies of this pastoral letter in 1,238 cities. Much buzz. Silence.
1975 (November). The TFP publishes in the newspapers a message to Cardinal Arns titled “Do Not Be Deceived, Your Eminence,” warning the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the void forming around it as it continued to favor communist subversion in Brazil. The reaction was instantaneous—a brief buzz, a ripple of agitation. Then, silence.
1976 (July). I publish the book The Church Facing the Escalating Communist Threat – An Appeal to the Silent Bishops, recounting forty years of progressive and “Catholic-leftist” crisis in Brazil. Fifty-one thousand copies are sold. Some churchmen make exaggerated and unfounded claims about it. I publicly request explanations. Silence.
1977 (February-May). Most Rev. Geraldo Sigaud, Archbishop of Diamantina, and Most Rev. José Pedro Costa, then Coadjutor Archbishop of Uberaba, denounce the spread of communism among Brazilian Catholics and within the Brazilian Catholic Church. There is an uproar. The Holy See launches an investigation led by Archbishop José Freire Falcão of Teresina. The investigation seems to fade into silence.
1977 (August). In the daily newspaper Correio Braziliense, Most Rev. Antônio de Castro Mayer, bishop of Campos, proposes that the Brazilian episcopate publish a collective pastoral letter against communism. His patriotic suggestion hits a wall of silence and rolls into oblivion.
1977 (November). I publish the book Indigenous Tribalism, the Communist-Missionary Ideal for Brazil in the Twenty-First Century, denouncing a communist-structuralist neo-missiology. Seven editions sell 76,000 copies. Buzz. Silence.
Given all these cries of alarm, and for the sake of brevity, I only refer to those from Brazil. It is a historical fact that the targeted parties responded only, or almost only, with murmurs, while the Holy See stayed silent.
In this sense—it’s important to emphasize—John Paul II’s speech in Puebla was, until recently, completely ineffective in Brazil. This is evidenced by all who witnessed, with dismay, the support given by bishops and priests to various forms of unrest and protest in Brazil in 1979.
It is against this bleak background that the letter from Most Rev. Luciano Duarte suddenly stands out. Timely and brave, it goes beyond simply criticizing the misleading prefaces added to the Puebla document. It condemns a hemispheric “interarticulation” with global impact, launched by supporters of liberation theology to discredit the honorable figure of CELAM President Most Rev. López Trujillo, who has opposed this school of thought alongside Bishop Luciano.
But here, our first question arises. Those two introductory studies on the Puebla document highlight two key points on the horizon of ecclesiastical subversion in Latin America. Very important points, certainly. But they do not cover the entire landscape. Will Bishop Luciano only fight to neutralize these two issues? Will he ignore the broader range of subversive initiatives that liberation theologians are increasing across the continent? Will he overlook that the so-called “interarticulation,” which he accurately perceives, is flooding with slander not only the noble figures of Archbishop Lopez Trujillo and himself but also many other fighters for a good cause? Given this, how far will he (and Archbishop Lopez Trujillo) pursue the commendable fight they started? Will they sheathe their swords after a brief response from CNBB? Will they keep fighting until the harmful prefaces are withdrawn from circulation? If so, will they then retreat into the conscience—or illusion—of a job well done? Or can we hope that the letter from the Archbishop of Aracaju is a first step toward unleashing all Christian energies to implement a program for the final cleansing of the polluted doctrinal horizon in which Ibero-American Catholics are living?
In reality, only this final hypothesis addresses the situation’s requirements.
Otherwise, if we remain mysteriously inactive on the horizon where useless rumblings roar, and only move occasionally like a firefly with a dim light and an indecisive flight, the situation will only worsen because the futility of this latest move will deepen the mystery, unease, and confusion.
If this is to happen—God forbid—it is better that we immediately focus our hopes on the visit of John Paul II, whose robust, lively, and cheerful presence will come to us in mid-1980. His response to the errors of Father Jacques Pohier, Father Hans Kung, and Father Edward Schillebeeckx—and perhaps Frey Leonardo Boff—is raising significant hopes.
