What No Injustice Can Ever Alter – Folha de S. Paulo, August 27, 1972
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
I feel compelled to write an open letter to His Eminence Eugênio Salles, Cardinal Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro. Here it is.
“Kissing the sacred purple…” Letters addressed to cardinals usually began with these words until recently. Your Eminence, I do not know whether this noble and beautiful formula has fallen into disuse over the years, as the Church has been undergoing self-destruction amid the smoke of Satan’s sooty impregnations—to quote Paul VI. In any case, allow me to use it here, as I love and venerate the Roman purple as an ardent son of the Church. Obeying the impulse of my heart, I kiss the Roman purple in spirit as I address Your Eminence.
However, Your Eminence, at the very moment I pay homage to the Roman purple, the zeal for my honor as a Catholic and a Brazilian, as targeted by your article (“The Force of Selfishness,” in Jornal do Brasil of the 19th of this month), places me in the unfortunate position of presenting Your Eminence with a protest. A public protest, as public as the accusation itself.
I am thus exercising legitimate self-defense, the most fundamental and elementary right, defined and protected by canon law and the laws of all civilized countries.
I am acting exclusively on my own behalf, but I must point out that countless Brazilians, the vast majority of whom are Catholics, have been attacked alongside me. Therefore, the considerations I am about to make will undoubtedly be shared by all who read your article.
From the outset, I want to make clear that I am not bringing the land reform issue into play. I have no intention of fighting against it in the current emergency. It would be primarily up to the associations representing rural landowners to do so. But, as far as I can see, they are refraining. I am not, and never have been, a farmer. So, without renouncing the positions I have taken on this matter in the past—and thanking God for having done so—I remain entirely silent on the subject. How can I speak out in favor of a cause whose natural representatives have chosen silence?
Therefore, I am not writing to you about land reform but about the unjust moral profile you have drawn of anti-reform Brazilians, among whom I am included, albeit obscurely yet authentically.
Please allow me to quote your words from your article.
According to Your Eminence, anti-reformists lack genuine sincerity. Their arguments are merely “bizarre disguises” for their selfishness.
Being fanatically selfish, they react bitterly to “the slightest reference to it” (that is, to land reform). They are masters of cunning one-sidedness. Thus, in their arguments, they slyly ignore “the solid economic and political structure of those (countries) that have carried it out [agrarian reform] throughout history.”
Your Eminence concludes, with somewhat breathless emphasis, that the anti-reformists are driven by selfishness and self-interest, and that they show contempt for the community’s demands and the suffering of our brothers and sisters. So, for those who do not think like Your Eminence on this matter, there is no patriotism or charity, only fierce, unconditional selfishness.
After making the accusation, Your Eminence then turns to aggravating factors.
Do anti-reformists behave this way inadvertently? That would be a mitigating factor for them, but Your Eminence dismisses it by remarking in passing that their behavior is “perhaps involuntary.” Perhaps… So perhaps it is voluntary.
Hence, according to Your Eminence, the conduct of anti-reformist landowners is contradictory and insincere. Your Eminence writes: “There is a striking attachment among some of those who enjoy a favorable position, and they react to anything that might mean a reduction in their possessions. It is human selfishness, the fruit of sin. On the other hand, there is a search for all means that can serve to support a privileged social position. Religion itself may not be seen for its intrinsic value but as a protection or barrier to the legitimate rights of others.”
In line with this, such selfish people applaud religion, “when it speaks of patience and the afterlife. The applause ceases when it recalls social injustices and presents changes in the structures that prevent us from seeing the image of God in the face of our brother, as required by the faith. Then comes disappointment and even attack. They did not seek God but themselves and the security of their own possessions here on Earth.”
As a philosophical conclusion, Your Eminence ponders:
“The reaction to land reform … makes us reflect on the power of selfishness.”
* * *
This long, accusatory libel by Your Eminence requires some comment.
As Your Eminence notes, agrarian reform runs counter to the interests of many. But the simple fact that a landowner defends his interests—and, incidentally, his principles—does not necessarily mean he is so passionate that he loses sight of his duties.
For Your Eminence to be justified in raising the serious accusations you have made, it would be necessary to analyze, one by one, the arguments against agrarian reform and prove that they are unfounded. If this is not the case, even though Your Excellency does not agree with these consistent and serious arguments, one must presume that those who advance them are sincere.
Allow me to observe that Your Eminence refutes none of the anti-reform arguments. You provide no evidence for the accusations you make. And you immediately take up your cudgels to strike, not at ideas, but at the reputations of those who do not think like Your Eminence.
The Church, Your Eminence, has always been extremely cautious in matters of a private nature: de internis nec Ecclesia. I wonder how Your Eminence could have forgotten this well-known phrase and, using your prestige as a pastor, incite your readers’ antipathy—if not hatred—toward an entire current of national opinion.
And this at a time of setback, when the members of this current would be entitled to a word of affection and understanding from every pastor, even if he thinks differently from them.
The contrast between the government’s attitude, apparently committed to implementing the reform in a climate of maximum calm, without upsetting or hurting anyone, and that of Your Eminence could not be greater.
* * *
In your article, Your Eminence has publicly criticized anti-land-reform Brazilians without adducing any valid argument. Therefore, as a staunch anti-reformist, I, like thousands of other Brazilians and Catholics, feel compelled, in legitimate self-defense, to say to Your Eminence that, in the presence of God, I protest against your article with all my soul.
Having done so, I once again kiss the sacred purple with affection and veneration, knowing that no injustice will ever alter it.
