by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
On the 25th of this month, I sent the following letter to Mr. José Bonifácio, the distinguished President of the House Justice Committee, and to the honorable congressmen who are members of that committee:
With warm and respectful greetings, I kindly ask for your permission to present some considerations from the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property regarding a draft bill by Representative N. Carneiro. Representative Aldo Fagundes currently has a favorable opinion on the bill, which is under review by the Justice Committee.
In these considerations, you will find not only my personal thoughts but also those of the entity I have the honor of leading, along with its members and volunteers organized into sections, subsections, and nuclei spread across the country.
Furthermore, I am confident I also represent the large group of friends who support the TFP across the country, especially the 1,042,359 Brazilians who voiced their opposition in a historic 1966 petition against the legalization of divorce.
Public opinion began to stir with the news, sparsely reported by the press, that the bill proposed by the unyielding pro-divorce advocate Nelson Carneiro was moving forward. This uproar will grow day by day, until it startles the entire country, which opposes divorce, and Mr. Carneiro’s proposal aims to introduce two innovations that Brazilians find absolutely unacceptable:
- The sneaky introduction of a matrimonium diminutae rationis[1] or a second-rate, spurious, shameful, and short-lived marriage to spread alongside legitimate marriage, discrediting and damaging it;
- Adopting a likewise diminutae rationis divorce, undermining the legitimate family simply by existing and paving the way for the approval of radical and open divorce.
Both innovations fundamentally oppose the core principles of Christian civilization. And, as a Christian nation that takes pride in that identity, Brazil can never accept them without automatically breaking with the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Nelson Carneiro’s bill is unquestionably incompatible with Catholic doctrine. If support for the bill arises from unexplained omissions and silences, I doubt anyone will dare to deny this incompatibility, even amidst the current tragic confusion the Church faces.
I spoke of a ‘diminutae rationis’ marriage.
Indeed, giving a male concubine, whether unmarried, divorced, or widowed, the right to authorize his concubine to use his last name creates a situation similar to a square root or a miniature version of a marital state.
By the very nature of things, sharing a common family name symbolizes the complete union of personalities, affection, interests, and life. For this reason, it has always been regarded in various eras as a logical and characteristic consequence of marriage.
Therefore, permitting a couple living in the state of concubinage to be bound by a shared last name is to recognize concubinage as a distinctive sign of the fundamental elements of marriage ‘diminutae rationis’, a ridiculous ‘little marriage.’
This impression is further reinforced when considering other aspects of the aforementioned bill.
Therefore, with this gift, Mr. Carneiro envisions more than just a concubinage but a marriage-like relationship strengthened over time.
Furthermore, this ‘little marriage’ will eventually lead to the creation of an official act that confirms its start, possibly performed before a marriage judge or recorded in the proper public registry.
How can someone determine the start of the five-year period when cohabitation becomes ‘marital’?
This also paves the way for a ‘little divorce,’ as dissolving cohabitation can involve or even require the creation of formalities similar to those for ‘little marriages,’ leading to ambiguous and complex situations. It is naive to think that, in the long run, dissolution will occur within our current legal system with one of the cohabitants simply notifying the appropriate registry office that the cohabitation has ended, and the shared last name is no longer valid (the proposal offers no provision for this).
In a communist regime, where the entire legal system is arbitrary and individual rights are weak and fragile, the ‘little marriage’ would not cause many issues. This explains why the ‘little marriage’ and ‘little divorce’ in Nelson Carneiro’s bill are more similar to Soviet marriage and divorce than to indissoluble marriage and separation, as found in canon law and our Civil Code.
That said, the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property trusts that you, who are responsible for drafting laws according to the country’s mentality and intent, will recommend to the House Plenary the rejection of the Nelson Carneiro bill.
TFP’s hope in this regard is even stronger because, with the current legislature ending, everything suggests that the congressmen will prefer not to introduce such a complex and disruptive change to national legislation. Instead, they will likely leave this issue for a new Plenary session, which will consider the latest wishes of the population.
Under current conditions, a pro-divorce congressman would typically announce his pro-divorce stance to the public and then wait for the poll results.
Mr. Carneiro is very concerned about this nationwide announcement, and rightfully so. He clearly understands that Brazil opposes divorce. This is likely the reason he suggests not a full but a ‘partial divorce.’ He hopes to create a loophole in the law for the dwarf, aiming to shake the wall and let the giant in.
Thus, the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, trusting in this distinguished Committee’s patriotism and wisdom, urges you to defend the sacred wall of the Christian family, based on the indissolubility of marriage, and to oppose the Nelson Carneiro draft bill, which violates God’s Law—something no earthly power has the right to ignore, deny, or revoke.
In this expectation, and reaffirming to Your Excellencies the testimony of my high esteem, I remain your compatriot and admirer.
I now bring these considerations to this newspaper’s broad and influential readership.
[1] Translator’s Note: A marriage lacking its full rational or essential foundation.