by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
When De Gaulle died, several media outlets around the world declared that with him, the era of demiurges had ended. From then on, in an increasingly socialized world, the great men of yesteryear would be replaced by great teams or great organizations. This prediction is undoubtedly in line with socialist logic. According to socialist doctrine, people should be absorbed by groups, and groups by large, depersonalized, anonymous crowds, which are considered the highest value of the future world.
To each of us, this perspective entails dissolving our own selves into the confused magma of the masses. Therefore, I cannot understand how anyone with an open mind and a well-formed spirit can rejoice in it.
In fact, this socialist desideratum is false. It is possible that the steamroller of socialist egalitarianism will flatten the personalities of millions. But humanity, compelled into forms that deny its nature, will surely breathe a universal, muted groan. As always happens with the great groans of oppressed peoples, that of an eventually socialized world will also find souls of choice who will formulate it in terms of thought, literature, art, or action. These will be the great men of tomorrow. Their impressive figures will be formed in the shadows of prisons and will rise in the tragic isolation that surrounds nonconformists; they will sacrifice themselves in devotion and struggle. The masses may not know them, but it matters little. Such men will be truly great. And on the day of the Last Judgment, the Just Judge will give them their due reward. Thus, socialism will have given birth to the great men whose emergence its mentors sought to prevent.
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Above all, I am certain that great men will continue to appear in the future, because “the Spirit blows where it wills” (Jn 3:8), and no one will prevent it from carrying out its sanctifying work. Now, to sanctify means to form personalities that are entirely defined, distinctive, and unbreakable, which no system of massification will be able to dilute.
A saint is precisely the opposite of a mass-produced man. He is the opposite of an ant-man, the living automaton of the immense socialized Babel. A saint is like yeast in dough (Mt 13:33); he imparts his strength of personality to others, breaking the inertia of stagnant crowds. He is like salt (Mt 5:13): he gives flavor to what is tasteless and vitality to insipid, mediocre, or even vulgar personalities.
Here, I understand “saint” not only to mean the giants of Christian heroism but also every man living in the grace of God.
As long as the world lasts, the Church will continue to produce men of fiber and even great men: “the Spirit blows where it wills.”
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Two recent events confirm this. The ashes of the recluse of Colombey [de Gaulle] have not yet cooled in the tomb, and the world can already contemplate the full radiance of two great personalities, haloed in a glory that neither Churchill, Adenauer, nor de Gaulle possessed. A glory beside which all merely human greatness is nothing but dust, ashes, and nothingness. A glory that surpasses all other glories in splendor, strength, and sweetness. Its name is blessedness. “Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:10). This was not proclaimed by any commission of scholars or by any act of UNESCO. It was simply enunciated atop a small provincial hill by Someone who, being truly man, was not only man. He was the Man-God, and therefore this blessedness transcends all human greatness.
These two blessed men are Cardinal Josyf Slipyj and Cardinal József Mindszenty. “Let my bones rejoice in my salvation” (Psalm 59:10): David’s words rise from my heart to my lips at this moment, when I am given the happiness of proclaiming the authentic greatness of two cardinals of the Holy Church.
The Church alone can decree canonizations, and it does so with great prudence, not canonizing anyone while they are alive. Thus, I will simply say that the two cardinals are blessed for associating themselves with the cause of those persecuted for the sake of the Faith before the world.
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Leaden clouds obscure the low horizon. Spiritual pollution has tainted the Holy Church’s internal atmosphere. The mentors of international communism seek to force her into an agreement at all costs—an ambiguous, submissive one now offered by Machiavellian diplomats and cunning prelates such as Pimen, the factotum “patriarch” of Moscow’s atheists. Many believe these pacifist maneuvers are sincere, while others pretend to.
Cardinal Slipyj during a historic visit to Brazil in September 1968, at the TFP headquarters. At his side is Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira.
Cardinal Josyf Slipyi, the Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian rite, was not swayed by that maneuver. Exposing himself to all risks, he tore off the mask of the unctuous atheists. Standing before Paul VI at the Synod session on October 4, 1974, he proclaimed great truths that reduced Brezhnev’s policy to dust—or rather, to mud. Persecutions in the communist world have not ceased. Ukrainian Catholics continue to suffer the worst persecution. And, Cardinal Slipyi exclaims, there is no one on the vastness of the earth to protect them. Pimen (whose inauguration as “patriarch” of Moscow was attended by a Vatican delegation headed by a cardinal and who recently received Father Arrupe, Superior General of the Jesuits) described the persecution of Ukrainians as one of the most memorable events of our century.
Cardinal Slipyi’s denunciation went on and on, proclaiming uncomfortable and dramatic truths. The lights signaled that he should stop, as his allotted time had passed. But he continued to speak. He would not stop until he had said everything, unless they physically removed him from the podium. While he spoke, nothing could be done. When he fell silent, nothing was left unsaid.
The next day, the newspapers showed the world the full moral stature of this great man.
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Let us turn to Cardinal Mindszenty. Trembling with admiration or stiff with hatred, the whole world has watched him through three successive “crucifixions”: in Nazi dungeons, in communist prisons, and in the tragic solitude of the American embassy. He has resisted until now. Finally, what he regarded as a duty of obedience compelled him to do what no human force had been able to achieve. Against his will, he left Hungary and went to Rome, where a tepid but honorable end awaited him.
This is a difficult time for every hero: the time to put on slippers, sit in a rocking chair, and light a pipe. A time when the hero risks softening. Slippers can easily cause one’s laurels to wither…
Would Cardinal Mindszenty agree to stop fighting and no longer be an obstacle, a living reproach, and an unyielding moral threat to the communist tyrants in Budapest?
On the occasion of Cardinal Josef Mindszenty’s visit to Venezuela in April 1974, that nation’s TFP issued a message of welcome to the heroic prelate and was honored to greet him at Maiquetía International Airport, where it displayed its standards. The distinguished visitor received the TFP directors and volunteers twice and honored them with expressive displays of sympathy.