The CNBB and Class Struggle – Folha de S. Paulo, November 20, 1976

 

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

 

In a twenty-page booklet, the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops published, as a supplement to the October issue of their “Monthly Communique,” a document from its “Representative Commission.” The Commission—made up of bishops—titled the document “Pastoral Communication to the People of God.” It states that it was written “thinking of you, simple people, religious people, people from basic communities and reflection groups, and we offer you this pastoral reflection” (p. 3). This was a terrible initiative.

The “reflection” offered to “reflection groups” is surprisingly redundant. But let’s move on.

The document’s Portuguese text is rudimentary. For example, consider this sentence: “Although economic differences are not a sin in themselves, the injustices that have caused them is [sic] a sin” (p. 16). Such is the level.

However, let us leave this aside. We cannot dwell on questions of form within the limits of a newspaper article, since the brochure’s twenty pages (we were inadvertently about to write a pamphlet) are filled with substantial questions, and there is not enough space to comment on them.

* * *

As is well known, class struggle is a Marxist dogma. Would the reader like an example of the stimulus that Pastoral Communication provides to this struggle? Read the following description, which presents some fragments of truth alongside the most serious and obvious generalizations, one-sidedness, and exaggerations:

“The poor and defenseless are those who fill jails and police stations, where torture is common among victims who are there on charges of not carrying identity documents or are arrested during police raids. Only the poor are accused and arrested for vagrancy” (p. 9). Obviously, “ordinary people” reading this are left with the vague impression that contemporary Brazil is hell for honest poor people.

And that, moreover, Brazil is a paradise for the rich, who can commit crimes with impunity:

“For the powerful, the situation is quite different. Some criminals are not punished because they are protected by the power of money and by the prestige and influence in society that cover it up, making them complicit in this type of injustice” (pp. 9 and 10). What society? Obviously, that of the rich, thus singled out for the condemnation of the poor.

To underscore this condemnation, the conclusion states: “This double standard (for the rich and the poor) seems to suggest that, in our society, money is the source of rights, not humanity” (p. 10).

* * *

For now, this blatantly distorted presentation of the current Brazilian situation has elicited only one protest from ecclesiastical sources. I am not referring to the great figure of Bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer, whose mere presence in the national episcopate is worth a permanent protest against this and so many other enormities. Cardinal Vicente Scherer told the press that “the situation described in the document and the conclusions drawn from it do not seem to me to correspond to the overall reality of the country, nor, above all, to be true in Rio Grande do Sul.”

“They do not seem to me,” says the Cardinal, timidly and indecisively — when one would expect a categorical, courageous rebuttal of so many enormities. But, anyway, it is better than nothing.

I am surprised that, with three widely circulated daily newspapers in São Paulo publishing the unfortunate Pastoral Communication’s text almost in its entirety, there has not been a barrage of protests against it, since it offends a considerable number of people.

Does it really offend them? That is the question, because at least in principle, there would be reactions if it did.

But if it does not offend, how low has the CNBB’s prestige fallen that, when it makes the most serious accusations, the accused remain indifferent! As, indeed, have the friendly and peaceful “simple people” walking the streets, who remain unmoved by the fly of episcopal demagoguery.

* * *

We cannot fail to transcribe another typical example of this demagoguery. It seems expressly calculated to stir up hatred among those who have less against those who have more: “Why,” the bishops ask, “can only a few eat the best food, while the majority has to go to bed hungry? … Why do some earn 30, 50, 100 thousand cruzeiros a month, while so many others earn no more than the minimum wage? … Why can some travel and see the whole world, while most cannot take a week’s vacation and go out with their families?” (p. 16).

The document goes on to rail against the current “socio-political-economic system,” which generates “a social order marked by injustice and conducive to violence” (p. 18). It is always the same amalgam of a few fragments of truth with one-sidedness and exaggerations or falsehoods, together constituting a glaring injustice. This, in turn, produces nothing but class hatred.

But why talk about injustice in relation to an episcopal document that proclaims Brazil is a land where the rich torture the poor and protect wealthy criminals, thereby implicitly affirming that our entire judicial system is filled with accomplices or minions of this monstrous oppression?

This reflection reminded us of the famous Comblin Document from 1968, in which the Belgian priest, an advisor and friend of Bishop Helder Camara, called for the abolition of the judicial system.

In turn, this makes us think about what the Pastoral Communication says about his beloved and admired Dom Helder, as well as about the bishops accused of being communists and their accusers.

But this article is getting too long. Let’s leave these miseries for another time.