Unique Aspects of a Glorious Campaign – Folha de S. Paulo, September 3, 1969

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

TFP’s nationwide campaign to distribute the April-May issue of the prestigious monthly cultural magazine Catolicismo has nearly finished.

We have already discussed this issue here. The London Catholic Magazine Approaches published a detailed exposé on the activities of IDO-C, an international media giant dedicated to secretly spreading atheism within the Church. Ecclesia, the official publication of Spanish Catholic Action, released an in-depth study on the so-called “prophetic movement.” This movement is a broad network of infiltration cells aimed at spreading atheistic doctrine throughout Catholic circles by word of mouth, similar to how IDO-C promotes it in writing. Catolicismo translated and commented on both texts, providing relevant photographic documentation to warn our audience about this grave threat.

The campaign to distribute this particular issue of Catolicismo was conducted by TFP young men—including university and high school students, shopkeepers, and workers—who began by selling the paper in Brasília and major state capitals such as Rio, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Porto Alegre, Salvador, Fortaleza, Curitiba, Florianopolis, and others.

The public’s response surpassed even the most optimistic expectations despite the magazine’s substantial doctrinal content, which is unlike the material typically published by large-circulation magazines, and its two new cruzeiros price per copy. This welcome was especially apparent among the more modest parts of the population. Four consecutive print runs of the magazine, totaling 55,000 copies, quickly sold out. This led Catolicismo editors to prepare a fifth printing of the double issue in a popular format that could be sold for 50 cents per copy. The TFP organized a large campaign across the country’s interior to sell this edition. In forty days, nineteen caravans of our young people traveled to 480 cities in the country’s south, center, and northeast.

I will share details about the victorious welcome given to these caravans at the right time. For now, it’s enough to mention the total number of copies sold: 163,000. One of the most remarkable aspects of our recent campaign is that I believe no publication dedicated to spreading sound doctrine has ever achieved such a result in the history of our country.

This is the latest update on the TFP’s major campaign against atheistic infiltration in the Church. It has unquestionably exceeded its previous notable achievements.

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That said, I want to discuss two setbacks we encountered. This will give the reader insight into other quirks of our campaign.

In these columns, I have written about the passionate opposition of the Minas Gerais Secretary of Public Security to our peaceful and lawful activities in public venues. I thought he was the only one, because, except for Minas Gerais, we sold magazines all across the country while receiving from the authorities the necessary guarantees to exercise the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. Outside Minas Gerais, we only faced violent opposition from groups led by progressive priests and fanatic hooligans. Note that our campaign was unique in the nation’s history, especially in how it was attacked. I know of no other case of an anti-atheist campaign being stopped by police like in Minas Gerais, and vehemently opposed by enraged priests almost everywhere.

My belief that the government would only restrict our actions in Minas Gerais was shattered at the last moment. A few days ago, in Bahia, in the beloved, glorious, and traditional city of Salvador, the Secretary of Public Safety (they didn’t give me his name) opposed us with the same obstacles as his passionate Minas Gerais counterpart. This was despite the fantastic popular welcome we had been receiving in the beautiful capital of the viceroys.

The Secretary only argued: a) In the Brazilian context, the TFP is the complete opposite of communism. Therefore, the TFP is just as genuinely extremist as communism; b) as a result, since communists do not have full freedom of action, neither should the TFP. Consequently, we were forbidden from using standards and capes or acting in public events in Salvador as we had in Minas. We were only allowed to sell magazines door to door, clearly limiting our campaign’s effectiveness.

In this regard, I would like the Bahian authority to respond to this argument:

1. Every doctrinal error completely negates or distorts a truth to different extents.

2. Thus, there are two possible attitudes when facing an error. I will illustrate this with atheism. When confronted with an atheist, one either defends the truth that contradicts their error by asserting that God exists or rejects the atheist’s view and claims that there is not just one God but many gods.

3. That said, I ask what extremist position is symmetrical to atheism.

a) Is it the claim that there is only one almighty God, the creator of everything visible and invisible? If so, then every Catholic would be considered an extremist and should be prohibited from practicing Catholicism in the states of Minas and Bahia, which is clearly unreasonable.

b) Or does the extremist stance opposite to atheism involve claiming that many gods exist? If this is anti-atheist extremism, then one might ask what true extremism actually is. Clearly, it is the assertion of one error in opposition to another. Therefore, TFP’s extremism will only be symmetrical to communism if it supports errors opposite to those of communism.

4. Very well. So, I ask Bahia’s Secretary of Public Security what error he found in the double issue of Catolicismo or any of the books distributed by the TFP. If he believes he has found an error, I ask him to point it out publicly. If not, on what grounds does he call us extremists and restrict our freedom?

I want to inform you that, so far, neither Dom Helder Camara nor progressive priests have claimed to discover any error. It would be interesting to see a secretary of public security give a lecture to the entire Brazilian clergy on Christian religious or social doctrine, pointing out with tweezers a doctrinal error that neither the bishops and priests who support us nor those who oppose us have been able to find!

Our campaign’s most surprising episode will be this theological discovery by a civil authority… in a country that separates the State and the Church!

Eagerly, I present these considerations to His Excellency as an invitation for him to share his opinion.