Without statistics, Brazilians would not likely know the total number of urban and rural property owners, industrial and commercial entrepreneurs, shareholders and holders of public and private securities, and housewives with domestic helpers in our country.

For this exposition, we should add to this the considerable number of those who, while not belonging to any of the above categories, live exclusively from the work of their minds—intellectual work that broadly encompasses not only university, secondary or technical degree holders, but even professionals with no specific qualifications. They all earn their living thanks to their wit or mental agility, their sense of reality or fine manners, all of which are intellectual qualities in one way or another. For example, such is the case with the numerous and indispensable classes of real estate, securities and stock brokers.

By its numerical importance, such a vast group of Brazilians can constitute a great force in the country, making them a target of socialist ideologues seeking to undermine their strength and demean their natural rights. They thus pave the way for their communist comrades to strike a final blow by denying their rights most radically and crush their social role and mission under the boot of the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat.

In addition to the large number of its components, this social segment is crucial because of its natural and evident influence and the functions its members perform. This is so true that, if some evil ukase were to reduce all these categories of Brazilians to manual labor from one moment to the next, the country would come to a standstill and crash down the slopes of precipitous decadence.

A country whose elites are extinguished soon suffers the same fate as a body whose head is cut off.

The knowledge of this truth, definite in some and nebulous in others but alive in all members of these elites, explains at least in part the deep and obstinate feeling of stability that has taken root in them. All the more so because an apocalyptic overthrow could only come from a conspiracy of those below them in the social hierarchy—the far greater number, who make their living from manual labor. However, the latter’s track record shows they have been so peaceful and stably settled in their condition that a general revolt against property owners and intellectual workers seems like a distant and perhaps even chimerical hypothesis to almost everyone.

However, in many who experience it, this profound feeling of stability coexists contradictorily with an opposite impression. While this impression is often indefinite and changes in intensity all the time according to the news or the thousand little concrete facts of daily life, it disposes people’s souls to consider a possible victory of communism in our country as inevitable if unpredictable, but by no means improbable if certain circumstances should present themselves.

* * *

Leading to this mindset is a powerfully suggestive backdrop derived from cursory history studies usually done in high school courses. These provide the false certainty that the French Revolution overthrew the Bourbons’ throne due to an uncontainable combination of factors, including the majority’s yearnings for a new order modeled after the Liberty – Equality – Fraternity trilogy. Because all these factors also existed in the other countries of Europe, albeit in a still germinating state, the French Republic and Bonaparte armies could extend the French Revolution’s “conquests” to almost the entire European continent.

Yes, “almost the entire continent,” but not all. The Romanovs’ Russia was spared, but its defeat in World War I ended the days of absolute monarchy in the last European country where this form of government was still in force.

As is known, the Romanovs were overthrown by factors similar to those that had brought down the throne of the Bourbons at the end of the 18th century. However, these factors were charged with even greater radicalism in the Russian Revolution. So, unlike its 1789 French predecessors, victorious communists did not limit themselves to establishing liberty, equality and fraternity (as they understand it) in the political sphere and only half-heartedly in the social sphere. They charged full steam ahead into the socio-economic sphere by virtually extinguishing the family, abolishing property and imposing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Seen through this prism, which is true in some respects and false in others,[1] the victory of communism in today’s world would seem as inevitable as that of the French Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nothing would seem more normal than to see Soviet Russia striving to advance the egalitarian revolution of the 20th century, a role similar to that played by France, favoring political egalitarianism in the 19th century.

From this perspective, South America would be “lagging behind” in this unavoidable “evolution” toward communism. The latter would gradually spread to our continent just like in the rest of the world.

The increasingly socialist laws in most countries of the Old World are proof of this slide toward communism—more marked in Europe than in the Americas. A most recent and still fresh proof of this was the victory of the Socialist-Communist coalition in the May-June 1981 French elections.[2]

Once in power in France, Mitterrand immediately set about spreading self-management socialism throughout the world.[3]

For the French PS, the extinction of employers and the establishment of self-management in the corporate sphere is merely a complement to the extinction of monarchies in the broader sphere of the State.[4]

Despite many unfavorable factors, with its self-managing socialism program, the French head of state, once again from Paris, thus proposes to complete across the world the revolutionary task that Moscow has so far failed to accomplish in still non-communist countries.[5]

The despondent and pessimistic sides of the soul of so many of Brazil’s elite find support and encouragement in all this.

* * *

Based on historical conceptions in which trivial truths and shocking errors are intertwined, this background is corroborated by the media’s actions. More often than not, they report every victory of Russian expansionism to impress people and present every advance of socialist legislation in the West as auspicious progress wrested from the selfishness of the rich by the growing power of the poor. Furthermore, the social unrest promoted in Brazil, mainly or exclusively by the “Catholic left,” is reported as a fearful onslaught of a rising tide of popular indignation led by clerics whom the higher ecclesiastical authorities are unable or unwilling to curb.

On the other hand, this much-reported leftist agitation is rarely noticed in the concrete context of people’s daily lives. From this angle, it seems more like a ghost than a reality. This is all the more so because the street demonstrations stirred by this unrest always have a tiny number of participants—a telltale symptom that most press reports can barely disguise.

Thus, the propaganda hoax gives the communist danger an image that seems to confirm, on some sides, the background of the currently accepted historical picture and the elites’ tendency to despondency. On the other hand, the same elites’ optimistic illusions seem to be confirmed by their members’ personal experiences.

Curiously enough, these two states of mind – one optimistic and certain that the catastrophe will not come, and the other despondent and pessimistic – coexist without clashes in the minds of the very large majority of possible or future victims of socialism and communism. The fact is that the two states of mind converge to justify the victims’ marked disposition toward inertia. Depending on the news of the day or the sometimes minor concrete circumstances that mark each passing hour, the potential “victim” either justifies his inaction in the face of the communist danger by thinking and saying that it is superfluous to react against it because it is very remote for the time being or claims that an antisocialist and anticommunist reaction “is useless” and “cannot” be carried out because communism is coming.

In both cases, the bourgeois’ concern is to justify, in his own eyes and in the eyes of others, the inertia in which he delights. It is the delightful inertia of those who want to live, more than anything, to enjoy the security and abundance of their situation or satisfy the unbridled appetites and ambitions characteristic of the so-called consumer society.

* * *

The description of this psychological situation common among our elites is suggested first and foremost by a current observation of reality.

Moreover, the TFP has recently confirmed this with numerous concrete examples collected from roughly the entire Brazilian territory during a campaign by volunteer caravans promoting the book I Am a Catholic. Can I Oppose Land Reform? [6]

^ªThis book’s largely achieved aim was to alert as much as possible the landowners’ class to the danger of socialist and confiscatory agrarian reform in the wake of the great hullaballoo that followed the publication of the document The Church and Land Problems, approved by the 18th General Assembly of the CNBB [National Conference of Bishops of Brazill], held in Itaici from February 5 to 14, 1980.[7]

The TFP’s dedicated volunteers worked very hard on the campaign to achieve this result. The state of mind they found among rural landowners often corresponded to the one described above. Only a work especially dedicated to this subject could adequately inform them about the dangers they faced and mobilize them against the agro-reformist onslaught with the spirit of initiative and fight that farming naturally forms in genuine farmers.[8]

* * *

An aggressor’s strength lies in his victim’s inertia. The picture drawn here shows that, given the lack of preparedness of Brazil’s responsible elites to confront socialism and communism, the latter would have a considerable chance of winning even if it had little power. History teaches us that the course of events always harms those who sleep. And however legitimate the rights of the elites may be, nothing will protect them if they remain inert: “Dormientibus non succurrit jus”: The law does not help those who sleep.

Moreover, the social revolution’s impact is far from small. As shown below, it is caused primarily by Brazil’s Basic Christian Communities (BCCs).

Almost all the media tend to present them as powerful monsters to discourage pessimists and even optimists. However, a reality check of the nation’s panorama indicates that the Basic Christian Communities are but a growing danger that can be circumvented. In turn, this fact keeps inert people in their optimism—one more contradiction that can only incline our elites toward confusion, dispersion, and inertia!

* * *

The TFP’s study on BCCs, now being offered to the public, aims at very different results. It is a virtual call to action. Once denounced, rejected and fought against, these organizations will have no way of winning.

But we have to fight. As we will see, they are already strong enough to win if our uninformed elites continue to let themselves be lulled into a confused alternation between optimism and pessimism.

Two TFP members with a long record of service to the organization, to which they fully devoted their robust intellects, habit of study and reflection, culture and generous dedication, have agreed to take on this work of information and enlightenment, which, from this point of view, could be described as one national salvation.

They have no economic interest in the current socio-economic order. They are not landowners and have always given the TFP their valuable intellectual work with the proviso that it merely provides them with sufficient means of subsistence.

The two authors are particularly qualified to carry out this study. On the one hand, they had long been reading and monitoring the thinking of progressive and “Catholic left” circles, which constitute the BCCs’ doctrinal substratum, define their goals and inspire their methods to a considerable extent. On the other hand, the authors’ longstanding service in TFP ranks gave them a knowledge that no book could provide—an experiential knowledge of theological progressivism and “Catholic leftism” in action with tendencies and tactics that can only be unveiled by a long and accurate struggle against them.

By compiling a massive documentation that one could call monumental without exaggeration, sorting and analyzing all docuemnts with penetrating acuity and organizing their various elusive aspects in a broad and lucid synthesis, the two authors have drawn a general picture of the Basic Christian Communities as they exist and are spreading in Brazil in 1982, which constitutes Part Two of this volume.

The book has been printed by the good offices of Editora Vera Cruz, and the TFP is now ready to promote it throughout Brazil.

* * *

As stated above, this campaign aims to alert the social classes targeted to be overthrown to the communist danger so that, once warned, they finally coalesce around their natural leaders to halt the advance of the adversary made dangerous by their inertia. This alone will reduce the danger to its true proportions. Through arduous efforts, they can cut it down to a minimum size below which it will not fall because numerous circumstances in the contemporary world favor it.

Brazil will thus be able to continue its historical journey without experiencing the discord, unrest and death into which class warfare has plunged so many illustrious nations or the long decades of subjection to gloomy and sterile dictatorships of the “proletariat” that have plunged a growing number of peoples into degradation, sadness and misery.

Instead, having averted the danger, with its energies animated by the struggle, our country will prepare for its luminous world mission in the 21st century. A lofty ideal coupling the zeal for the Church and Christendom with an ardent desire for Brazil’s Christian greatness.

* * *

Given the above, someone could object: Is the TFP promoting a class struggle between intellectuals and property owners against those who have neither studied nor owned property? If so, would TFP’s work not coincide with BCCs’ aims? The latter ignites a class struggle between haves and have-nots and those who know and those who do not. TFP and BCCs would be equally responsible for this confrontation by leading both classes to fight each other.

This objection may impress superficial minds but does not stand up to an objective analysis of the facts.

By warning and stimulating potential victims of communist aggression to react, the TFP does not intend to deny and violate the fundamental rights of workers, let alone an absurd extinction of the working class. On the contrary, scrupulously faithful to the traditional doctrine of the popes in socio-economic matters, the organization seeks to have these rights increasingly respected in a social order shaped by justice and charity and, for this very reason, made up of distinct, hierarchical and harmonious social classes.[9]

Therefore, the reaction the TFP strives to promote does not lead to a bloody confrontation but aims to avoid it.

When warning the other segments of society against the communist danger, the TFP is keenly aware that this is not against the manual workers class but rather against the maneuvers of the progressive-left sect long entrenched in the Church.[10] So far, this sect has only succeeded to recruit a tiny manual workers’ minority.

This sect aims at the utter extinction of the social classes it conspires against. It recruits sympathizers in these classes only to have the latter work within them to destroy them more quickly and completely. This sad work is usually done by “useful innocents,” “fellow travelers,” crypto-socialists or crypto-communists, and “toads.”[11]

The progressive-leftist sect does not aim to establish fair and harmonious cooperation between friends of order in all social classes, as taught by the traditional documents of the Church’s Supreme Magisterium. On the contrary, it aims to impose the dictatorship of a single opinion—that of rebels from top to bottom of the social structure, whom it craftily calls ‘the poor.’

As a method, the sect initially seeks to persuade recruits through sophistry and chicanery to build up a first nucleus of followers. Once this is done, it begins to act. The next step is to promote discontent (the sadly famous “awareness-raising”). The initial nucleus then starts promoting unrest, riots, and finally chaos and social revolution—which is quite the opposite of TFPs’ strictly peaceful and orderly action consistently and uninterruptedly pursued throughout its decades-long existence.[12]

Therefore, there is no real parallel between communist-progressive and leftist actions on the one hand and TFP’s on the other. Instead, there is an absolute dissimilarity in spirit and doctrine, as well as in goals and methods.

This book should be seen from this perspective. It is part of what the history of today’s anti-communist reaction will call “The TFP Collection.”[13]

Chapter One

The Reach of TFP’s Doctrinal Enlightenment of the General Public

In Our Time of Media Chaos

In the 19th century, the era of Propaganda opened up for humanity with the extraordinary growth of the printing press. People’s profound movements were less and less born of impulses, tendencies or formal desires conceived in profound layers of national psychologies. Outside Propaganda has increasingly induced collective movements, meaning that more and more people have become masses.[14]

Marconi gave the world radio communication when excellent psychological and technical resources were reaching a perfection that Gutenberg certainly couldn’t have imagined. When radio was on its way up, a rival appeared that would significantly reduce the influence of both press and radio and monopolize the leadership of political, ideological and economic propaganda: Television. Now, as the age of cybernetics is emerging, one might suppose the latter would bring to an end the cycle of great inventions at the service of Propaganda. However, given the progress of so-called transpsychology, which is still nebulous, unusual and disconcerting, new forms of social communication might lead to even more unsuspected, faster and, drastic and terrible means of propaganda.

An upward march is seen in both the speed and perfection of the means of communication and a gradual improvement of their already excellent capacity to inform. The press, radio and television, all in continuous progress, complement each other in such a way as to make available to man an astonishing abundance of ideas and images. To inform, impress, and persuade people, these means of communication have achieved a power often greater than that of the most prominent powers of the past. These media, especially when combined in the service of the same idea or interest, can influence the course of events more than a king, a diplomat, a warrior or a philosopher.

Such is the power of ideological, political or simply commercial propaganda in its respective field.

On its way up, Propaganda has produced an obvious consequence which the media fail to mention, and for good reason. Given that the movements of today’s masses set the course for nations, and the media set the course for the masses, these media have a rectrix function in the contemporary world. In a curious interaction, if, on the one hand, the media can do less than State sovereignty, on the other hand, it can do much more. Media potentates exercise a sui generis form of power over people’s mentalities among the grassroots and leaderships of the contemporary world, giving the media something of a secular “papacy.”

The media have a profound influence on the powers that be. It is becoming increasingly difficult for politicians to win elections and remain in control without the support of propaganda. An observer would add that modern propaganda exercises a form of imponderable but real domination over the masses, which has not been completely studied. Its suggestive and hypnotic power goes far beyond the suasive action of the rationalist press of old.

The interrelationship between Power and Propaganda is obvious in democracies, where everything is decided by voting, which Propaganda deeply conditions. On the other hand, public power is becoming increasingly “social” and thus drawing ever closer to omnipotence. It can subject propaganda to multiple forms of pressure that only heroes and saints know how to resist. And the latter are becoming increasingly rare in our massified world.[15]

These and other forms of pressure also exist in totalitarian regimes in which the State tyrannically seizes Propaganda and becomes its propagandist. Hitler’s political power was thus a child of propaganda, which he seized for his own benefit. Almighty Propaganda, which raised him to the clouds, had to fall on its knees before him as soon as this elevation was consummated. And, suspicious of this genuflecting omnipotence, he decided to jugulate and devour it before it rose rfrom its episodic prostration and set out to jugulate and devour the monster it had generated.

* * *

Always powerful, Propaganda is rarely autonomous, as it is either in the hands of the private sector or the State.

Thank God it is in the private sector in Brazil’s specific case. It would be worse if the State held it.

In this case, however, it is held by macro-capitalism, the only one that can gather the necessary resources to maintain a newspaper, radio or TV station to reach the entire country, particularly when dealing with intertwined networks.

As a result, hardly anyone can benefit from Propaganda without the support of macro-capitalists.

In this regard, the group of friends who eventually established the TFP went through a harsh experience from 1935 to 1960. All newspapers were closed to it. If one or the other consented to publish a piece of news it proposed, its dimensions and pagination brought more discredit than prestige. Bookstores – docile complements of today’s great propaganda machines – accepted its books but usually failed to display them and hardly sold any. Only very gradually from 1960, when the TFP was founded, did this situation change to some extent in some rare and indeed prestigious media outlets.

However, at the same time, media macro-capitalism, always very open to all forms of leftist propaganda, lent itself to carrying out successive and spectacular publicity campaigns against the TFP, which resisted undaunted.

Broadly speaking, media macro-capitalism has proven to be an inflexible foe of the TFP.

* * *

So, a question inevitably arises: What are this book’s possibilities for success since it comes out orphaned by the media?

While these possibilities are not as great as we would like, they ensure that the book will have a considerable impact, as shown by the track record of many of our works.[16]

While all doctrinal, the books published and distributed by the TFP always deal with highly topical issues related to problems successively caused by the great religious, cultural, social and economic crises that all Catholic countries have been going through in recent decades, including the most populous and extensive, Brazil.

This topicality on burning issues can interest sectors of the population qualified to learn about high-caliber doctrinal topics but who so far haven’t read about them due to the terribly absorbing nature of contemporary life.

Thus, it is becoming more viable to supply books directly to the public at large in streets and squares, in people’s homes and workplaces, rather than to the limited public that frequents bookstores.

The TFP sensed this in 1960 when it sent caravans of members and volunteers traveling all over Brazil to spread the book Agrarian Reform – A Question of Conscience, which soon became a national bestseller. That was in addition to Palácio do Livro distribution company’s good cooperation for contact with bookstores.

Since then, the TFP has fine-tuned its system of caravans and made them its primary publicity method to circumvent the systematic curtailment imposed by the liberal media. It thus affirmed its right to express its thoughts despite powerful pressures and its limited financial resources.[17] This explains the very large circulation of TFP works.[18]

* * *

At a time when the public’s attention is turning increasingly to the BCCs in a panorama in which legal and illegal political parties increasingly reveal their small stature and lack of dynamism, a growing number of Brazilians see the Basic Christian Communities as an emerging electoral power that will shape Brazil’s destiny in this year’s elections.

Therefore, many Brazilians will likely try to determine what these organizations are.

To inform them, the authors of this book’s Part Two have gathered enlightening data ‘from the horses’ mouth,’ so to speak, drawing from writings in which the BCCs define themselves to their adherents and the public. This primary source of information is supplemented by news clippings from newspapers and magazines aligned with their tenets and thus entirely unlikely to distort any facts to the detriment of the BCCs. All this is so cogent that, should any Base Christian Community complain about what is said here, the authors could respond with the words of Scripture: De ore tuo te judico: ‘Out of thy mouth I judge thee’ (Lk 19:22).

A non-partisan entity, the TFP neither favors nor fights any political party or group with this book. It serves them all by helping them to know who they are allied with, if they support the BCCs, and who they fight if they join the opposite camp. BCC allies are perhaps those who benefit the most from this service. In politics, as in any other field, hasty and uninformed alliances often do more harm in the medium or long run, if not immediately, than rough blows from the adversary. This is seen particularly in the history of the great revolutions.

* * *

The BCCs are preparing for a real revolution in the broad sense of the word, with serious possibilities of becoming very big. Slogans such as “catch a landowner” are beginning to echo in our hinterland (see Part Two, Chapter Three, 6). In line with BCCs’s thinking and style of action, as well as their radical “mystical” dynamism, such cries will soon be followed by “catch a boss,” “catch a landlord,” and “catch a manager.” Their net will catch everyone now sleeping indolently in a profound lethargy, lulled alternately by discouragement and optimism.

The BCCs radically attack not only private property but also the family institution. As Part Two of this book shows, they entirely subvert the latter and tend to suppress it as useless.

The BCCs proclaim that a prostitute can have a mission so excellent (cf. Part Two, Chapter Two, 2) as to be even superior to a nun’s. According to Church doctrine, a nun’s status is superior to a housewife’s. If a prostitute’s ‘oblation’ or self-giving is superior to a nun’s, that means that the former is on a higher level than the mother of a family.

This conclusion, fully compatible with socialist doctrine, is contrary to the moral sense of all people at all times. From a socialist point of view, a prostitute serves the community by being everyone’s property. In contrast, a wife is at the same time her husband’s “owner” and “property” – not a community property but only of an individual and, as such, in a collectivist world, wives must disappear.

Who knows if when “catch-a-farmer” and “catch-a-boss” operations are underway, Brazilians will also be forced to witness even more reprehensible “catch-a-wife” procedures.

This book is a warning against this massive and frightening Revolution.

Chapter Two

The Fourth Branch (Media) and Fifth Branch (CNBB)

Work Together to Impose Rural, Urban and Corporate Reforms in Brazil

The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) is a body set up by the Holy See in 1952, perhaps as a harbinger of the tendencies towards collegiality that were so pronounced at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It aims to coordinate the work of the country’s diocesan 233 bishops and their respective coadjutor and auxiliary bishops in office (55 in all), as well as the three Ordinaries for Eastern Rites faithful throughout Brazil’s territory (data from the 1982 Liturgical Directory). Also part of CNBB is 62 retired bishops residing in the country, totaling 353 bishops entitled to speak and vote in the episcopal body.[19]

The CNBB is promoting an immense socio-economic transformation with a very left-wing slant.

The main point of this reform, which is unquestionably revolutionary in many ways, is to remodel the country’s rural land structure. This remodeling will ultimately lead to a division of all large and medium-sized rural properties into family-sized properties only large enough to be worked entirely by the hands of its respective owner and his family with, at most, the sporadic help of some fleeting helper.[20] This would amount to a double death knell for the farmers’ class.

In the best-case scenario, the latter will receive compensation lower than the current market value of their properties,[21] meaning they will have to accept the consequent social degradation (in the etymological sense of the term).[22]

The CNBB also promises to engage in urban land reform, which, if logically deduced from the guiding principles of Agrarian Reform, should pave the way for two essential measures: the extinction of tenancy in favor of tenants turned into owners of the spaces they occupy, and a redistribution of space so that each person, company or family only occupies the area arbitrated as vitally necessary by the public office in charge so there is enough floor space for everyone.[23]

It’s not hard to see that the CNBB also advocates a business reform similar to the agrarian and urban reforms it calls for.

* * *

The picture that emerges before Brazilians’ eyes is astonishing. It reveals that the CNBB has implicitly declared the Brazilian State a minor needing a tutor. It lacks the wisdom, strength and power to become aware of its problems, find solutions and resolve them effectively. For this reason, the CNBB would have to do so on a supplementary basis.

Isn’t this an exaggerated claim, given that the CNBB is not seeking to impose land reform on its authority but appealing to the three government branches to implement it? So where is the usurpation of State powers that the country’s top ecclesiastical body tends to carry out? How is the CNBB usurping the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary branches’ full exercise of the powers conferred to them by the Constitution?

While there’s nothing objectionable about its action in the strictly legal realm, the legal order does not contain all the reality of the facts.

Albeit incompletely adequate, an example makes this clear. The media’s power over public opinion (which modern states proclaim as sovereign) gives them a significant say in setting the country’s course. That’s why the media have been called The Fourth Branch, perhaps not without some exaggeration.[24] But it’s easy to see that the part of reality in this designation is much greater than the part of exaggeration.

In its own way, the Fourth Branch undeniably exists.

Also, in its own way, the CNBB is becoming a Fifth Branch. Because of the deep spirit of faith that reigns in the vast majority of Brazilians, the Church’s moderate but legitimate role throughout the country’s history with the widespread founding of most varied institutions, and the many assets that the Church has at its disposal, the latter’s influence on public opinion is capable of easily disputing the media primacy and, depending on the circumstances, victoriously taking the lead.

Under these conditions, if it wants to play a significant role in setting the nation’s bearings, the Church has the means to do so or at least try to do so with a strong chance of success.

This glaring finding is now made even more compelling by a circumstance that will undoubtedly attract the attention of future historians, albeit it seems to have gone largely unnoticed by our various elites, who are in a profound state of lethargy.

By a coincidence that is difficult to explain, the Fourth Branch—the Media—is ultimately going through a phase of impressive unanimity. In general, its outlets’ impulses blow the nation in the same direction. Differences of opinion among them, if any, usually do not lead to any fierce or deep controversy that would jeopardize everyone’s convergence in the same direction. There are few exceptions to this observation.

Admittedly, not everyone on this shared journey is at the same distance from the ultimate goal. While none or almost proportionately oppose the continued hypertrophy of State powers, and many favor it, only a few call themselves antisocialists from time to time. However, since the term “socialism” is one of the most ambiguous in scientific and political vocabulary, this position does not prevent these same outlets from encouraging the continuous encroachment of state powers into the private sphere in one way or another. Consequently, their opposition to this phenomenon, which has taken on alarming proportions notably since General Ernesto Geisel’s presidency, has been woefully inadequate.[25]

The CNBB—The Fifth Branch—generally heads in the same direction, so these two great unofficial branches appear to the observer as resolute “fellow travelers” heading to the left. This explains why relations between the Fourth and Fifth Branches are currently exemplarily cordial, except for sporadic incidents between this or that bishop and this or that media outlet.

This reality can be gauged by the amount of space that so many leading media outlets reserve for news about the CNBB and ecclesiastical personalities and organizations working along these lines.

It is true that, alongside the spaces generously granted to the CNBB, even larger ones are often given to unabashed pornography. Yet this contradictory attitude, which sometimes leaves the good “man in the street” astonished, doesn’t seem to impress those in the Fourth Branch and impresses those in the Fifth Branch less than one might expect. In a way, you could say that everything unites them, and nothing separates them.[26]

* * *

Given this impressive coalition of unofficial but effective powers, pressure from the top on the three official branches has obvious conditions for success.

The Fourth and Fifth Branches’ joint efforts went a long way toward causing the decline of military influence in the Fifth Republic, which began in 1964. This year’s November elections will tell us whether it will continue. These observations are merely statements of fact and contain neither applause nor censure. Once Brazil was on the road to the political opening and the power of the popular vote was almost fully restored, it was up to the unofficial Branches to complete their action through grassroots pressure. The Fourth Branch has done its best to expand and do its part of the job, but it should be noted there is still little it can do to grow in this direction.

On the contrary, the Fifth Branch had plenty of means to expand to act on public opinion and, through it, on the electorate and now could bring grassroots pressure to bear on the three official branches from the bottom up.

The Basic Christian Communities are the great instrument the CNBB is activating to this end.

* * *

With CNBB’s clear intervention in specifically temporal matters outside its competence, one wonders what principle or law it is following.

No law is backing it because the Brazilian state has been secular[27] since 1890 and sees the Church as a merely private entity like so many others, devoid ipso facto of any role in the field of public law even if strictly supplementary.[28]

This principle hovers above all legal norms: “Salus populi suprema lex esto: let the people’s salvation be the supreme law” (Law of the Twelve Tablets, cf. Cicero, De Legibus, III,9). If the country lacked adequate institutions or temporal authorities and could find no other recourse in a severe crisis than to turn to the Church, the latter would not go beyond the mission the Divine Founder entrusted to her by responding to the nation’s call and assuming the direction of the “res publica” to the most minor extent possible, but also to the fullest extent necessary. That would be a strikingly exceptional action that could only last as long as strictly necessary. If the Church were to go beyond the reduced limits of action and duration above, she would violate the distinction between the spiritual and temporal powers instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ.[29]

Therefore, without denying the historical possibility of an exceptionally critical situation that would oblige the CNBB to take on such a task, it is permissible and even indispensable to ask whether the current situation fits that bill.

More incisively, we cannot fail to ask whether the three official branches – Executive, Legislative and Judiciary – are in such advanced decline that the two extra-official branches – the Media and CNBB (4th and 5th Branches) – can and even should play with them a role similar to that of the all-powerful palace mayors in medieval France before the decadent Merovingian dynasty. As is well known, the growing power of mayors decided everything behind the diaphanous veil of the dying Merovingian power.

No such situation exists in today’s Brazil. Therefore, the relationship between the roi fainéant and the palace mayor would only be possible if the holders of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd branches willingly resigned themselves to a “Merovingian” passivity facing the advance of the 4th and 5th branches.

But—someone may object—what can the three official branches do now that the two unofficial branches are converging? For example, can they close down the Basic Christian Communities? Can they curtail the freedom of the CNBB and the media?

All that would be disrespectful and counterproductive.[30]

All it will take is for the country’s ruling elites to wake up from their slumber and open their eyes to the situation in which they are giddily allowing themselves to be trapped, for the fine sensitivity of the unofficial branches to make them take other directions. That would also allow the official branches to find an environment where they can comfortably defend themselves in strict compliance with the laws in force. This book is a plea for the lethargic elites to open their eyes. In all fairness, the latter can only see it as a gesture of collaboration from the TFP, a testimony of appreciation for their prestige in the country and their naturally noble mission in the social body.

This book can only displease those who don’t want to be awakened from their delicious dream—or those who don’t want them to open their eyes. If the latter are many and manage to keep the nation’s elites in lethargy, there will be no other remedy than to ask God to pity Brazil.

He alone can save a nation whose elites choose to sleep.

Chapter Three

Distorting Beautiful Church Maxims to Favor CNBB’s Reformist Action

After reading the previous chapters, it’s natural that a reader lulled into the lethargy described above should feel he’s facing a nightmare. This incubus is all the more unpleasant as it presents many aspects similar to reality about the two unofficial branches’ top-down pressure on the three official ones. Conversely, it also shows a significant dissimilarity with much of what has been said about CNBB’s grassroots pressure brought to bear through the BCCs.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine that the CNBB could lead Brazil’s immense mass of manual workers to charge against the property regime in force simply through the BCCs and hasten in this very short time the major socio-economic reforms whose urgency the Fifth Branch insistently proclaims.

Therefore, demonstrating the feasibility of such a task is essential if the whole reformist plan put forward by the Fifth Branch appears feasible and the reader is to feel that he is not facing an illusion and thus react.

Gustavo Antônio Solimeo and Luiz Sergio Solimeo have demonstrated this with depth, accuracy and care, as the reader will see in Part Two of this work. This is just a brief overview of the context in which the impressive reality described in Part Two takes place to direct the reader to further considerations.

* * *

The Basic Christian Communities are groups recruited mainly by members of the secular and regular clergy, women’s religious orders and congregations, and Catholic laypeople who are more attracted to religious issues and approach qualified Church representatives on their own initiative.

The very religious position of these faithful makes them peculiarly receptive to every teaching and directive emanating from ecclesiastical authority. Rightly imbued with the dogmas of the primacy of the Sovereign Pontiff and Papal Infallibility defined by Pius IX in 1870 at the First Vatican Council, their incomplete religious formation leads them to attribute to these dogmas an extension they do not have.[31]

Moreover, also rightly convinced of the holiness of the Church, these faithful imagine that simply admitting that the relationship between pope and bishops, bishops and clergy, and the latter’s procedure toward the faithful may not correspond exactly to what would be ideal is an act of impiety.

Accordingly, they imagine that all of the pope’s intentions, his whole way of considering the present reality, and all his concrete acts benefit from infallibility. Similarly, all bishops, in perfect union with the pope, do nothing but follow all of Rome’s orders with the most enthusiastic and perfect meticulousness; priests do the same with bishops and nuns with priests.

While undoubtedly praiseworthy in terms of the spirit of faith from which it comes, this conception has the reciprocal that every word from a priest and even a nun must be accepted as if it were from the Church herself!

In this way, the holy and true maxim of “sentire cum Romano Pontifice” [“having the same mind as the Roman Pontiff]—an excellent way of “sentire cum Ecclesia”—is simplistically transposed to every personal act of the pope and down to his immediate echelons: “sentire cum episcopo,” and even to the parochial level: “sentire cum parocho.”

“One should even have the same mind as the sacristan,” once said a practicing Catholic who holds a professional position of responsibility, has a handle on life and has eyes to see!

* * *

With the immense influence this triple and hypertrophied “solidarity” gives them over most of the most ardent of their faithful, a priest or nun fully in tune with CNBB’s directives can easily lead them to the most unexpected ideological positions—and even the most dissonant with the Holy Church’s traditional and infallible teachings.[32]

The clergy’s normal influence goes far beyond the hard-core faithful. They influence an indefinite number of people through sermons, confessions and the many personal relationships that the exercise of the priesthood enables. This work is even more widespread in schools of all levels, orphanages, charitable institutions and other works maintained or run by the Church. Many ardent and less fervent faithful in this public assume that full fidelity to the Church consists of practicing the three “sentire” precisely as described above. As a result, the actions of a priest or nun can instrumentalize the Church’s prestige to influence a vast number of people, sometimes even through a simple piece of advice, word, or nod.

It is easy to understand the astonishing consequences to which this broadly understood triple “sentire” play is now leading and the countless social circles a priest can influence in this way.

This influence is further compounded by the veritable doctrinal and psychological “retraining” imposed by the CNBB on the population through compulsory preparation courses for engaged couples and baptismal godparents.

In these courses, progressive and leftist doctrines can be freely instilled in the name of religion in people with a traditional Catholic upbringing.

Those who avoid these courses are in a situation analogous to excommunication, as they are punished by being unable to marry or be godparents at baptisms, etc. (cf. Part Two, Chapter One, 3).

This draconian religious authoritarianism is the exact opposite of the ecumenism to which the “Catholic left” and progressive circles pay so much lip service. It also should be noted that it leaves the Church in a confused situation because, as people’s customs have plummeted and laws discriminating between Catholics and heretics are disappearing, the siege against those who remain faithful to traditional doctrine is becoming ever tighter.

All that largely favors CNBB’s reformist action.

Chapter Four

The Church’s Self-Demolition Drama:

The Role of the Hierarchy, Liberation Theology, and the BCCs

As everyone knows, the Church is experiencing the greatest crisis of its venerable and centuries-old existence. This crisis affects both the faithful and the religious of both sexes, priests and high-ranking prelates.[33]

More than one papal statement has documented this reality. John Paul II described the desolation reigning in the Church today as follows:

“One must be realistic and acknowledge with deep and pained sentiment that a great party of today’s Christians feel lost, confused, perplexed, and even disillusioned: ideas contradicting the revealed and unchanging Truth have been spread far and wide; outright heresies in the dogmatic and moral fields have been disseminated, creating doubt, confusion, and rebellion; even the liturgy has been altered. Immersed in intellectual and moral “relativism” and therefore in permissiveness, Christians are tempted by atheism, agnosticism, a vaguely moralistic illuminism, a sociological Christianity, without defined dogmas and without objective morality” (Address of February 6, 1981, to the Religious and priests participating in the First Italian National Congress on the theme of “Missions to the People for the 1980s,” L’Osservatore Romano, 2/7/1981).

John Paul II seems to be commenting on previous statements by Paul VI. In an address to the students of the Lombard Seminary on December 7, 1968, the Pontiff said:

Addressing the students of the Lombard Seminary on December 7, 1968, Paul VI stated:

“Today, the Church is going through a moment of restlessness. Some are practicing self-criticism, one might say even in self-demolition. It is like an acute and complex inner turmoil, which no one would have expected after the Council. One thought of a flowering, a serene expansion of the concepts matured in the great conciliar assembly. This aspect, this flowering, still exists in the Church. But since ‘bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu,’ one notices the painful aspect more. The Church is also struck by those who are part of it.” (Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, vol. VI, p. 1188 – our emphasis; the words are not the pontiff’s text but the Poliglotta Vaticana’s summary).

Paul VI returns to this theme in his Address Resistite fortes in fide, of June 29, 1972 (the Pontiff’s words are only those quoted in quotation marks in Poliglotta’s summary of the Address).

“Referring to the situation of the Church today, the Holy Father says he has the feeling that ‘Through some crack, the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.’ There is doubt, uncertainty, problems, restlessness, dissatisfaction, and confrontation. They no longer trust the Church; they trust the first profane prophet who speaks in some newspaper or some social movement, and they run after him, asking if he has the formula of true life. And we do not realize that we have become our own bosses and teachers. Doubt has entered our consciences, and it has entered through windows that should have been opened to the light. Science, which exists to give us truths that do not detach us from God but make us seek him even more and celebrate him with greater intensity, provides criticism and doubt instead. Scientists are those who most thoughtfully and painfully exert their minds, but they end up teaching, ‘I don’t know, we don’t know, we can’t know.’ The school becomes a training ground for confusion and sometimes absurd contradictions. Progress is celebrated only to demolish it with the strangest and most radical revolutions, to negate everything that has been achieved and to return to the primitive state after having so extolled the progress of the modern world.

“This state of uncertainty reigns even in the Church. They believed that a sunny day would come for the history of the Church after the Council. Instead, one has seen a day of clouds, storms, darkness, searching, and uncertainty. We preach ecumenism, yet we have become more and more separated from others. We try to dig chasms instead of filling them.

“How did this come about? The pope confides to those present a thought of his own: That an adverse power has intervened. His name is the devil, this mysterious being that St. Peter’s Letter alludes to. On the other hand, in the Gospel, the mention of this enemy of men often returns by the very lips of Christ. ‘We believe,’ the Holy Father observes, ‘that something preternatural came into the world precisely to disturb, to stifle the fruits of the Ecumenical Council, and to prevent the Church from bursting forth in the hymn of the joy of having regained in fullness its self-awareness’” (Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, vol. X, pp. 707-709).

If the Sacred Hierarchy reacted clearly, unanimously and compactly against this tragic situation, the picture of contemporary religious reality would be simple to describe: Like a fortified tower in the sacred citadel, its hierarchs resist, helped by a greater or lesser number of laypeople while invaders who have burst through the walls and put all their efforts into a final assault.

One only has to look at modern-day Christendom to realize this is not the picture. If one uses the metaphor of the tower and citadel, parts of the rampart are already in enemy hands. Intentions aside, some personalities of the holy hierarchy cooperate with the invaders.

It’s easy to see what a disheartening effect this could have in Brazil. Consider that every churchman is a most faithful image of the Roman Pontiff for countless Brazilian Catholics and you can see the prodigious confusion to which the triple “sentire” principle inevitably leads.

* * *

A current of so-called “liberation” theology exacerbates this confusion. This is not the place to explain its doctrinal content in full.

Suffice it to say briefly that, encouraged at the 1968 Conference of the Latin American Bishops in Medellin,[34] and theorized by Fathers Gustavo Gutiérrez and Hugo Assmann, it has spread widely in theological circles worldwide.

Adepts of this doctrine strive to give a foundation in Sacred Scripture to the errors conveyed by two distinct but closely linked doctrinal currents. One is made up of progressivism in theology, philosophy, and morals, with consequent repercussions for scholars of Canon Law, Ecclesiastical History, etc. The other is leftism in the field of Catholic sociology, with consequent implications in the studies of Economics and Politics promoted under Catholic influence, as well as in the life, thought, and action of the political currents called “Christian Democrats,” “Christian Socialists,” “Catholic Socialists,” etc.

* * *

John Paul II roundly condemned liberation theology doctrine in his Puebla address.[35] Nevertheless, it continues to spread unchecked throughout Brazil.

This “theology” makes available to interested churchmen texts of Scripture that can be interpreted as a basis for people’s actions in tune with CNBB’s reformist program. In this way, it can transform laypeople into this reform’s artisans insofar as they respond to the voice of the Church!

By their very nature, the many potential actions aroused or stimulated by progressives call for an organization that concretely provides a unity of goals and methods to clerics and laypeople engaged in “reforming Brazil.” The BCCs are this organization.

* * *

All this shows how much vital sap circulates in the BCCs. Part Two of this work shows the doctrine they have disseminated, their organization, recruiting methods, and their adherents’ actions on the whole body of society.

Thus, the reader will be able to see the organization’s scale and the effectiveness of the subtle and complicated methodology it is supposed to implement. This will also make the reader aware of the BCCs’ possibilities for success throughout the country with CNBB’s inspiration and support.

In Part Two of this work, the reader will learn something about the BCCs’ history in Brazil and the results they claim to have achieved.

* * *

Chapter V

An Emerging Power in National Politics, the BCCs—Under the CNBB—Seek to Instrumentalize the State in the Service of Their Crossless Crusade. A Renewed Appeal to Silent Bishops and Elites

As we have seen (Part One, Chapter Four), liberation theology is the religious motivation behind bishops, priests and laypeople’s dedication to the BCCs. They recruit, articulate, organize and propel them essentially because, as a rule, in the first stage, they were persuaded that the Church’s doctrine on social matters and, consequently, her actions vis-a-vis contemporary socio-economic situations have changed because of a finer, more subtle and flexible interpretation of Sacred Scripture by John XXIII and Paul VI, and which John Paul II has continued to develop.[36]

But for those who have traveled further along this path, things have subsequently turned out differently. Medellin and Puebla denounced a “reality” seen as a situation of sin, oppression and structural injustice. This “vision of reality” serves as the basis for interpreting Catholic doctrine and setting the Church’s course, which can only be one: to combat the situation of institutionalized sin in Latin America’s socio-political, economic and cultural structures.

Taking this arbitrary and simplistically described “reality” as the “social place” from which the Holy Scriptures should be interpreted, these neo-exegetes deduce that the Church should not maintain the current status quo, correcting it only where necessary, as this would mean continuing to preach an “alienating religion.” On the contrary, the Church should be revolutionary and preach a liberating religion whose specific action is, in practice, overthrowing the current status quo.

This is liberation theology’s interpretation of [the Latin American Bishops’ Conference at] Medellin. It posits that the current conflictive and dialectical reality marked by the struggle between oppressor and oppressed gives rise to a new interpretation of Scripture, Dogma, Morals, and Justice. Because of this reinterpretation, liberation theology leads to doing politics for religious reasons (practicing justice, loving God, liberating people from a world subject to sin). It concludes: From a political perspective, the love of God is a political act practiced by implementing structural reforms (see Part Two, Chapter Two, 1).

* * *

All this considered, and given the great affinity of socio-economic thought between the BCCs and the socialist and communist currents in Brazil and abroad, one is led to conclude that the socio-economic revolution promoted by the latter and that of the BCCs are one and the same.

They differ only in the nature of their respective philosophical and religious motivations. A BCC leader, activist or recruit deduces from religion (reinterpreted by liberation theology) the socio-economic conclusions the Communist and Socialist Parties deduce from irreligion. This religious revolution and the atheist revolution have everything or almost everything to be largely united in the field of action.

In today’s world, however, the BCCs’ religious foundation of the revolution gives them specific characteristics and advantages that the atheist revolution lacks. Let us say a word about this.

At least in the long run, the religious motivation behind BCCs’ subversion gives them a chance of success that Lenin didn’t have.

Indeed, Lenin brought about the victory of an atheist revolution but did not kill religion. Nor did he instill a real appetite for a collectivist order in people’s souls. The proof of this is the continuous police repression against religious expansion and the spread of any doctrine contrary to communism in Russia.

Conversely, the BCCs are waging a revolution in the name of religion and working for the victory of secularism (a form of atheism) preached by liberation theology (see Part Two, Chapter II, 1).

* * *

Having highlighted the fundamentally religious motivation of the revolution the BCCs strive to promote, one can say they are waging revolutionary psychological warfare against the country’s elites.

Psychological warfare can be very briefly defined as a set of psychological operations designed to act on the adversary’s psyche in such a way as to make him capitulate even before any operation has defeated him by force.

Psychological warfare can be waged either against an external enemy or an internal adversary.

It gives an attacker the advantage of victory without the effort, expense and risk of war.

Psychological warfare can be waged simultaneously with conventional warfare.[37]

Do not think that psychological warfare excludes the use of force entirely. Intimidating the adversary is part of such warfare, and certain operations of force (“land invasions,” sabotage, attacks, kidnappings, riots, etc.) can intimidate and lead the social class you want to overthrow to capitulate.

In this light, it can be said that the long series of disorders of all kinds and even guerrilla warfare without any serious form of success that took place in South America from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s were nothing more than revolutionary psychological warfare operations designed to intimidate the elites and make them capitulate to the armed left-wing revolutions attempted here and there during this period.

The book Izquierdismo en la Iglesia: compañero de ruta del comunismo en la larga aventura de los fracasos y de las metamorfosis [“Leftism in the Church: Communism’s Fellow Traveler on Its Long Journey of Failures and Metamorphosesis”] is highly conclusive in this regard. In it, Uruguay’s TFP shows how Tupamaro terrorism was nothing but a show with the complicit participation of important sectors of that country’s Catholic hierarchy and clergy to establish a socialist-communist regime.

The study in Part Two of this work amply proves that violence plays a role in the BCCs’ revolutionary psychological warfare. In this sense, the “catch-a-farmer” operation mentioned earlier is a very significant precursor of it (see Part Two, Chapter Three, 6).

The strong and agile BCCs are not expected to win over the entire masses. Given the size of the Brazilian population – 120 million – it would take too long to influence.

All it takes for the revolutionary psychological warfare to succeed is for this machinery to win over some minority segments of the masses everywhere.

If they are well trained, members of these segments can give the general public the impression – through mass demonstrations, sabotage operations, violence of various kinds, etc. – that the entire mass of workers is revolting. Once this impression is reinforced by the sensationalist reporting of so many media outlets, the indolent elites will feel inclined to make so-called prudent concessions and ultimately capitulate.

Can the BCCs’ revolutionary psychological warfare degenerate into civil war? That depends on the seduction they manage to exert on the lower echelons of the armed forces and the confusion and discouragement they spread among people of the highest echelons facing a well-organized show of an “entire” working class revolting against the current socio-economic order.

* * *

As pointed out (note 37 of this chapter), revolutionary psychological warfare is today a weapon absolutely equated with others by those in the know. Can it be called a crusade when unleashed in the name of religion? Yes; an odd crusade without a Cross.

However, a war to subvert the elements of order in society is not a crusade but a counter-crusade.

Incidentally, the BCCs’ counter-crusade lacks a religious characteristic. While unleashed by churchmen, its aim is not religious but strictly temporal. Essentially ecumenical, it does not aim at the triumph of the Catholic religion over opposing churches and currents but only at “social justice” in the temporal sphere as conceived by liberation theology. What’s more, this conception of social justice is very similar to the communist one.

In this crossless crusade, the BCCs mention Our Lord Jesus Christ with some frequency, not as the Man-God but as a revolutionary leader or guru, exactly according to the Marxist interpretation of the Messias’ historical role as presented by liberation theology (see Part One, Chapter Four, note 35).

* * *

The BCCs are essentially a political crusade. As we said, it is a crossless crusade because they conceive the “Kingdom of God” they seek to implement in an entirely secularized way, despite their religious foundation and the fact that they present in “mystical” language the ethical foundations of the social transformations they advocate. Their political crusade does not exclude leaving the legal civic struggle to resort to violence whenever there is no other way to implement their reforms.

The BCCs, therefore, have introduced a fundamental change into the Brazilian political landscape. Until now, only political parties were openly present in it. They have in common with the BCCs the fact that they make politics their own field of action. But they differ from the BCCs in two respects: 1. They absolutely do not contemplate doing violence even in extreme circumstances; 2. They draw all their strength from their own ranks.

On the contrary, as we’ve seen so far and will see even better later, the BCCs live off a force institutionally alien to the field of politics, namely the CNBB. This entity, essentially representative of the national episcopate, belongs ipso facto to the spiritual order and not to the temporal order.

The importance of the first (spiritual) characteristic is obvious. Let us say a word about the second (extra-temporal).

The BCCs’ religious character attracts the CNBB’s support, encouragement and prestige. Since the CNBB represents the Episcopate, the BCCs concretely benefit from the support, encouragement and prestige of the Church itself. Their name in Brazil, “Basic Ecclesial Communities” seems to give them an official title, as the current language understands “ecclesial” as meaning “ecclesiastical.”

In short, everything about them seems to indicate to our highly Catholic country that they are the Church at work in politics.

In fact, this is exactly what liberation theologians think of the Church and the BCCs. The Church is supposed to liberate the masses from their unjust situation. To do this, the BCCs “conscientize” them, that is, make them aware they are suffering injustices, instill a desire to free themselves from these injustices, and unite them to bring about the longed-for liberation. However, according to the BCCs, this liberation can only come from legislation reforming the current socio-economic structures. And since laws can only be changed with the help of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, the only way for the BCCs to bring about the desired liberation is to count on federal, state and municipal legislators who adopt their program.

In theory, the BCCs could content themselves with exerting a purely ideological influence on legislators, those in the Executive branch and candidates for office. This ideological influence might not be partisan and thus not constitute an ecclesial (or ecclesiastical) incursion into the specific field of politics. For example, the Catholic Electoral League—LEC—did this in the 30s. It presented to the electorate some essentially religious requirements to be accepted by the candidates who sought its support.[38] However, the LEC did not intervene in any way in the structure of the State or civil society.

For congressmen elected on LEC’s recommendation, their duty was simple and clear.

On the contrary, the BCCs’ program aims at a complete reform of society and thus affects almost all matters over which the State’s legislature is competent. That is why it conditions all of the legislator’s activity. Therefore, for a legislator to see eye to eye with the BCCs, it is not enough for him to vote according to their wishes on a few points, as was the case with the LEC’s “Catholic Requirements” in the 30s. It will also be necessary for him to have the spirit and doctrine of the BCCs, to consult their leaders at all times, and, in short, to accept the latter as his bosses; a pejorative critic would say, as his “gurus.”

Once again, we can’t see how the BCCs’ reforms can be made law without the support of numerous councilors, state and federal congressmen, senators, governors, and even the president himself. To reform the country as comprehensively as the BCCs want, they need to govern Brazil.

In short, they need to get into politics.

* * *

Given this situation and the anemic state of our political parties, what are they left to do?

Given the current electoral law, the BCCs cannot become political parties. All they can do is join the various parties, have candidates in all of them, and coordinate them all to fully reform Brazil.

In turn, the political parties will feel compelled to join the BCCs by having as many of their followers as possible in their ranks and gain leadership positions to use the BCCs’ élan, prestige and electoral strength to further their personal and regional political interests. The instrumentalization of the political parties by religion (read liberation theology) and by the Church (CNBB-BCCs) will lead to the instrumentalization of BCCs, CNBB and religion by the political parties.

In short, it would bring upheaval and chaos on a broader scale than one might think at first glance.

To understand how widespread this phenomenon can be, one should consider that this peculiar development of liberation theology will not only occur in places with organized and vital BCCs. All it takes is for a parish priest to be persuaded of liberation theology’s theses or simply to be prone to them. His influence on the faithful will set in motion the powerful triple “sentire” mechanism (see Part One, Chapter Three) to release the Church’s always considerable electoral weight in various parishes to support BCCs’ candidates on the slates of various political parties.

How many pro-BCC Brazilian priests are there? While their total number is unknown, it is not small. The only thing we know—because it’s obvious to everyone—is that the number of people who fight the BCCs is tiny. Now, when combatants in a given field (in this case, the religious field) are numerous, organized and full of energy, and their opponents are few, sparse and timid, there is no doubt the former will gain the upper hand.

* * *

At this point, a word should be said about “useful moderates” whose role is especially important in the ongoing revolutionary offensive of the “Catholic left.”

The BCCs’ revolutionary psychological warfare is only in its early stages, so it cannot yet fully direct the social elites it wishes to overthrow. For this reason, they need to reassure the elite elements whose potential counter-offensive could still pose a danger should they react against BCCs’ wrongdoings.

“Catholic left” sympathizers are very useful for this task because they allowed themselves to be persuaded of the BCCs’ supposed harmlessness. Furthermore, their moderate temperament can calm down sporadic frights of the elites’ indolent elements and prevent any counterattack.

In reality, however, “useful moderates” tend to be “fellow travelers” of more radical leftists all the way down the road. In other words, they reassure the center and the right as far as possible about the bold actions of the left. And when that’s no longer possible, they cross their arms and watch with unabashed sympathy the left’s unbridled, furious and terminal march.

Here is one example: The vast majority of the public cannot precisely answer what “Basic Ecclesial Community” means. When asked this question, an embarrassed Brazilian may ask a “useful moderate” for help. The latter will be unlikely to tell him the truth, as Bishop Miguel Balaguer of Tacuarembó (Uruguay) put it so aptly: “Basic Community” is equivalent to Soviet (see Part Two, Chapter I, 2).

The Brazilian public has called Archbishop Helder Câmara of Recife the “Red Archbishop.” It didn’t call Archbishop Paulo Evaristo Arns and Archbishop Aloisio Lorscheider “Red Cardinals” because that would be redundant since red is the traditional color of cardinalship.

Cardinal Eugenio Sales and Cardinal Avelar Brandão Vilela are better known as centrists. But, as the effects of their operations over the last decade show, they look much more like “useful moderates.”

Cardinal Vicente Scherer is usually considered a right-winger. However, his statements in favor of Agrarian Reform benefit the latter more than those of the Cardinal-Archbishop of São Paulo. Because the former, considered a right-winger, is ipso facto unsuspected. And since he advocates at the same time an Agrarian Reform without violence, this makes him appear as a “balanced” or “moderate” right-winger. However, it is easy to see how his “moderate” pro-agrarian reform statements (see Part One, Chapter Two, Note 22) serve the cause of agrarian reform.

* * *

From everything we have seen, there is no doubt that the BCCs, much more than the CP, are the great emerging power in Brazilian politics.

Anyone who considers the full extent of the BCCs’ reformist plans cannot imagine that the scope of the movement’s political action is limited to winning a few parliamentary seats, a few councilor or mayoral mandates, or even a ministerial portfolio. If ever implemented, the threefold rural, urban and business reform aimed at by the CNBB, the BCCs, and more broadly by the “Catholic left” will result in at least partial reform of the Civil Code, the Commercial Code, the Civil and Criminal Procedure Codes, and almost all of the vast ordinary legislation in force in the country, along with the reform of countless laws, regulations and ordinances.

Without these comprehensive changes, the triple reform of rural, urban and industrial areas will be dead.

However, this immense reform work can only be carried out if all the state agencies are fully involved.

Therefore, either the State is fully instrumentalized by the BCCs, or their reformist intentions will be in vain.

Therefore, the BCCs cannot fail to fully instrumentalize the Brazilian State in service of their crusade without a Cross.

* * *

However, what are the BCCs if not a group of Brazilians dependent on the CNBB by virtue of the triple “sentire” mechanism? The CNBB is behind and above the BCCs.

In turn, what is the CNBB? In theory, it is the legal structure of the national episcopate (see Part One, Chapter II). In reality, it is the legal device whose governing bodies the “Catholic left” – or more precisely the ecclesiastical left – uses to impose itself on the majority of the bishops, who kee docilely silent at its meetings, vote as the left wants them to,[39] and leave the well-known Itaici meetings precisely as they entered: Without expressing joy, hope, regret or apprehension.

What does this majority think about all that is going on in their eyes without disturbing their silence?

All Brazilians would like to know that. They all welcomed an ardent, nationwide Appeal to explain it or at least abandon their invincible muteness, but the silent bishops never came out of silence.[40]

Faced with this persevering silence, only one question remains. Will the numerous trade associations, political parties, media outlets and prominent personalities whose job it would be to preserve the temporal sphere from being exploited by the ecclesiastical left-wing billeted in the CNBB also stick to the silence in which – with honorable exceptions – they find themselves?

Thus favored simultaneously by the twofold silence in the spiritual and temporal spheres, will the ecclesiastical left advance to instrumentalize Brazil itself?

We can only hope not because, in the temporal sphere, many silences may be explained by inadvertence about this highly unlikely and yet real instrumentalization of the country. May this book’s publication open the eyes of our nation’s elites so they intervene in time.

If they have the know-how, they can intervene successfully without detracting from the Holy Church or violating the sacred rights to which her divine mission is entitled.

Conclusion

Is It Possible to Resist the BCCs?

Everything we’ve seen here shows that BCCs are a considerable danger but one that can be completely circumvented.

This danger is considerable not only because of what the BCCs already are but also because of what they could become if they are left free to progress. However, this danger will be very manageable if the Brazilian elites, whom the BCCs are targeting, understand the need to take action to contain them as soon as possible.

What kind of action would this be? It is not up to the TFP to give guidelines or draw up programs for the classes it is warning. They have the resources of intelligence, social and political relationships and economic resources to plan and implement a broad campaign to enlighten the country about the problems the BCCs raise, the allegations the BCCs make about them, and their own points of view about what the country should do to achieve a prompt solution of the great national problems within the framework of justice and peace.

The TFP would like to make just one point in this regard. For the time being, the vast majority of the working masses have not been affected by the systematic detraction the BCCs are waging against the elites. Class hatred does not yet exist among us. On the contrary, manual workers are sensitive to the explanations the national elites want to give them. Therefore, the elites should address them as soon as possible, for tomorrow, with the growth of the BCCs, it may be too late.[41]

This TFP contribution to this clarification is essential.

Indeed, nothing is more appropriate to hinder the BCCs’ attempts at mass mobilization than to show that they are not in line with the traditional teachings of the Roman Pontiffs and that the class struggle the BCCs promote is condemned by the Church. Furthermore, the fatal system of the triple “sentire,” as a long tradition of religious ignorance presents it, exaggerates to an unimaginable degree the Church’s teachings about the faithful’s sacred obedience due to the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.

The TFP has demonstrated this last point explicitly and implicitly with abundant documentation throughout its 22 years of struggle. The fact that the TFP has already published and disseminated a whole library around the country on this and many other subjects shows how valid this argument is.[42] It has also expressed its thinking in abundant collections of the weekly Legionário and the monthly Catolicismo.

The logical value of these works’ argumentation is conclusive, as they have aroused much applause and hatred. Such hatred has manifested itself in defamation campaigns and media onslaughts of cyclopean proportions but never in counterarguments. When it comes to the TFP, the adversary isn’t afraid to slander even though he knows his false accusations will vanish in thin air for lack of proof. What the adversary does fear is arguing.

Apart from this smear campaign, it is difficult to conjecture the response of “Catholic leftism” to this book, as the arguments and documentation in Part Two leave no room for rebuttal.

By launching this book, the TFP is once again entering the fray. It does so by employing peaceful and legal weapons appropriate to high-level controversies and inciting the country’s elites to do the same with no less fearlessness.

The TFP does not claim prominence or leadership for itself. It publicly recognizes that, in this battle, it must be but one of the components of the great antisocialist and anticommunist front to be organized. It concludes this part of its book manifesto by asking Our Lady of Fatima, who warned the world of the danger of communism as early as 1917, to help our governing classes emerge from their lethargy and effectively exercise their mission of guiding the entire social body. If they do not, history will one day claim that the masses were led astray because the elites disdained to guide them.

But it should also be noted and said once again that there was no shortage of people who warned them at the last moment.

The TFP fulfills this duty at this moment, moved by its love for the Church, Christian civilization and our beloved Brazilian homeland.

It cannot do more than that!

Notes:

[1] Cf. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution, Part One, Chapter III, 5. American TFP, https://www.tfp.org/revolution-and-counter-revolution/.

To make this overview as concise as possible, the author has refrained from mentioning the evidence for many of his statements and refers the reader to works presenting this evidence, which is why he often cites books he has published.

[2] The Polish crisis at the end of 1981, the 1982 Falklands War, the controversies over the European gas pipeline, the revival of the war in Lebanon, and, more recently, the war between Iran and Iraq all contributed significantly to diverting world attention away from the French Socialist Party’s electoral success.

At the same time, the marked failure of the Socialists and Communists in the French cantonal elections in March 1982 and the accompanying wave of discontent against self-managing reforms imposed on France are factors that helped push to the background the news that major media outlets across the West had been publishing about the French situation. This naturally diminished the international impact of the propaganda for the self-managing socialism advocated by the French PS.

[3] Cf. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, What Does Self-Managing Socialism Mean for Communism: A Barrier? Or a Bridgehead? A Message from the Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFPs) of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, the United States, France, Portugal, Uruguay and Venezuela, What Does Self-Managing Socialism Mean for Communism: A Barrier? Or a Bridgehead? (https://www.tfp.org/what-does-self-managing-socialism-mean-for-communism-a-barrier-or-a-bridgehead/).

[4] A qualified representative of the French PS stated: “In our Western societies, democracy is more or less tolerated everywhere, except in business. Whether the employer is an independent industrialist or a high-ranking government official, he holds the essential powers to the detriment of all…A business is a monarchy with a pyramidal structure. At every level, the representative of the hierarchy is all-powerful; his decisions are final. The simple worker becomes a powerless man entitled neither to speech nor initiative” (Pierre Mauroy, Héritiers de l’Avenir, Stock, Paris, 1977, 276, apud Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, op. cit.).

[5] Just like the French socialists, the communists have the self-management of society as their final goal. In the preamble of the Russian constitution, one reads: “The supreme objective of the Soviet State is the building of a communist classless society in which communist social self-management will develop” (Constitution – Ley Fundamental de la Union de Republicas Socialistas Sovieticas, October 7, 1977, Editorial Progreso, Moscow, 1980, 5 (apud Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, op. cit.).

[6] Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and Carlos Patricio del Campo, Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 3^ª ed., 1981, 360 pp.

[7] Cf. text published by Edições Paulinas, Coleção Documentos da CNBB, no. 17, 1980, 38 pp., transcribed in full in Sou Católico: posso ser contra a Reforma Agrária?

[8] This tendency toward inertia was much less frequent in Rio Grande do Sul and Goiás. It is only fair to add that the widespread dissemination of this state of mind is primarily explained by the fact that, apart from the TFP, few voices have been heard against it.

[9] See in Sou Católico: posso ser contra a Reforma Agrária? (I’m a Catholic: Can I Oppose Agrarian Reform?), 82, with significant pontifical texts from the traditional doctrine of the popes on the social hierarchy as opposed to the Marxist class struggle.

[10] The book In Defense of Catholic Action (Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Editora Ave Maria, São Paulo, 1943, 384 pp.), sounded the first warning cry against the progressive-left sect in Brazil. It was praised in a letter written on behalf of Pope Pius XII by the Holy See’s substitute for the Secretary of State, Most Rev. G.B. Montini, later Paul VI.

On this subject, see also the magnificent Pastoral Letter on Problems of the Modern Apostolate – Containing a Catechism of Timely Truths that Oppose Contemporary Errors, by Most Rev. Antônio de Castro Mayer, the former Bishop of Campos (Editora Boa Imprensa, Campos, 1953, 144 pp.).

[11] This is what the TFP calls people from the wealthy bourgeoisie who brag about adopting an anti-anticommunist but non-communist position but who essentially (although many perhaps inadvertently) play the communist game.

[12] Cf. Tradition Family Property – Half a Century of Epic Anticommunism, The Foundation for a Christian civilization, Mount Kisco, New York, 1981. https://issuu.com/nestor87/docs/half_century

[13] The group of friends that led to the founding of the TFP in 1960 had previously published two works that are the historical starting point of this collection. The first, In Defense of Catholic Action, was the great watershed between the Catholic militants who founded the TFP and those who began propagating theological progressivism and socio-economic leftism in Brazilian religious circles. It was followed by another book, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Boa Imprensa, 1959), which definitively became the guiding thread of thought for all the other works published by the organization.

When the TFP was founded in 1960, several works were published and are listed in this volume.

It is also worth noting, with due appreciation, the essential series of pastoral documents by Bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer, until recently Bishop of Campos, also published by the TFP; all are related to the great controversy immediately or indirectly (see the list of works in this volume).

Most Rev. Geraldo de Proença Sigaud, S.V.D., former Archbishop of Diamantina, published the Pastoral Letter on the Communist Sect, Its Errors, Revolutionary Action, and the Duties of Catholics in the Present Hour (Catolicismo, no. 135, March 1962; Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 1963, 176 pp, two editions totaling 26,000 copies), and the Anticommunist Catechism (Catolicismo, no. 140, August 1962; Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 1962, 48 pages, five editions totaling 122,000 copies), which the TFP distributed widely throughout Brazil.

The dissemination of these critical episcopal documents was not just the work of the TFP. The ecclesiastical circumscriptions of the prelates above and people related to them in various parts of Brazil also worked on it.

[14] Pius XII thus describes this process:

“The state does not contain in itself and does not mechanically bring together in a given territory a shapeless mass of individuals. It is, and should in practice be, the organic and organizing unity of a real people.

“The people, and a shapeless multitude (or, as it is called, “the masses”) are two distinct concepts. The people lives and moves by its own life energy; the masses are inert of themselves and can only be moved from outside. The people lives by the fullness of life in the men that compose it, each of whom—at his proper place and in his own way—is a person conscious of his own responsibility and of his own views. The masses, on the contrary, wait for the impulse from outside, an easy plaything in the hands of anyone who exploits their instincts and impressions; ready to follow in turn, today this flag, tomorrow another. From the exuberant life of a true people, an abundant rich life is diffused in the state and all its organs, instilling into them. with a vigor that is always renewing itself, the consciousness of their own responsibility, the true instinct for the common good. The elementary power of the masses, deftly managed and employed, the state also can utilize: in the ambitious hands of one or of several who have been artificially brought together for selfish aims, the state itself, with the support of the masses, reduced to the minimum status of a mere machine, can impose its whims on the better part of the real people: the common interest remains seriously, and for a long time, injured by this process, and the injury is very often hard to heal” (Radio Message of His Holiness Pius XII to the People of the Entire World, Sunday, 24 December 1944. Discorsi e Radiomessaggi di Sua Santitá Pio XII, Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, vol. VI, 238-239. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/speeches/1944/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19441224_natale.html accessed 9/9/2024.

[15] A recent example is the Message of the Thirteen TFPs on French self-management socialism, which was published without difficulty in 56 of the leading newspapers in 18 countries, went unpublished in France apparently due to pressure from the socialist-communist government (which still smilingly claims to present socialism “with a human face”) on the six largest Paris newspapers that are not avowedly socialist or communist (see Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, In France: the Fist Crushes the Rose, Communiqué of the Thirteen Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property published in 30 newspapers in 14 countries. – See Catolicismo, no. 376, April 1982).

[16] Cf. Tradition Family Property — Half a Century of Epic Anticommunism, The Foundation for a Christian Civilization, Mount Kisco, NY, 1981.

[17] Since their beginning in 1970, TFP caravans have covered 2,629,553 km, equivalent to 65 laps around the Earth, or almost four round trips to the Moon. In direct contact with the public during 14,142 visits to large, medium, and small cities throughout the country, TFP volunteers have sold around 4,500,000 copies of the various publications published or sponsored by the organization.

[18] The reader will find among the pages of this volume a list of the works distributed by the TFP with the respective number of editions and print runs. The numbers are impressive given the circumstances of our country, with so few bookshops. Books with more than 5,000 copies are considered widespread except for teaching manuals.

[19] Retired bishops can only vote in deliberations that give rise to a legal obligation (cf. Statutes of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, articles 2^º and 10).

[20] Cf. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and Carlos Patricio Del Campo, Sou Católico: posso ser contra a Reforma Agrária?, Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 3rd ed., 91.

[21] Ibid., 109.

[22] Cardinal Vicente Scherer, former Archbishop of Porto Alegre, emphatically declares:

“We unceasingly proclaim that big landowners must come to terms with reductions in their assets. Dissemination of property is a fundamental postulate of an acceptable and just social order” (Correio do Povo, Porto Alegre, 1/3/1962).

“Agrarian reform is one of the ways of distributing property in the rural sector. … If agrarian reform expropriations are compensated for the real [property] value, as in large land holdings, the same inequality of fortune will continue and extend to another sector outside the agrarian sector, by investing in urban real estate the fabulous price received” (Correio do Povo, 11/121968).

Note that the illustrious prelate is one of the figures in the Episcopate and is most often presented as moderate. Many of his admirers even describe him as a “right-winger,” something indefensible given these and other statements by the prelate. If this is moderation in CNBB ranks, the reader can see its extremism.

[23] In the document Church and Land Problems, approved by the 18th CNBB General Assembly in 1980, the episcopal body dealt with Agrarian Reform and promised another study would soon be explicitly published on urban real estate. However, at its 19th General Assembly in February 1981 (when the book I am a Catholic. May I Oppose Agrarian Reform?) was ready for publication, it did not discuss the topic. It was debated at its 20th Assembly from February 9 to 18, 1982, fully confirming the fears stated here and already expressed in the book above (p. 100).

The document Urban Soil and Pastoral Action (Coleção Documentos da CNBB, no. 23, Edições Paulinas, São Paulo, 1982, 48 pp.), approved by the Brazilian bishops on this occasion, relativizes the property right as much as possible. It calls into question the legitimate legal title to property and tries to justify illegal occupations and even land invasions: “In the case of many slow occupations and even ‘invasions,’ the legitimate title to property, derivative and secondary, must be judged against the fundamental and primary right to housing arising from the vital needs of human persons” (doc. cit., no. 79). Significantly, the CNBB document puts quotation marks around the word “invasions” as if they weren’t invasions! See Part One, Chapter Three, no. 8, on what to think about these.

The document continues: “Bearing in mind the lesson of John Paul II, according to which every private property carries a social mortgage [sic], we conclude that the natural right to housing takes precedence over the positive law that presides over the appropriation of land. Just a legal title over a property cannot be an absolute value above the human needs of people with nowhere to set up their homes” (doc. cit., no. 84).

It is truly astounding to talk about a lack of places to settle in a country with 8.5 million square kilometers, 60% of which is entirely unoccupied (government land)!

How this relativization of the right to property radically differs from the Church’s traditional doctrine is easy to see by comparing it with well-known papal texts on this subject (see Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and Carlos Patrício del Campo, Sou Católico: posso ser contra a Reforma Agrária?, Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 3^ª ed., 1981, pp. 156-160; 180-182).

But the CNBB document, quoting Gaudium et Spes (no. 69), invokes the principle of extreme need for “people who have no place to set up home”: “If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others” (doc. cit., no. 83).

For this reason, “an urban reform that makes the city a space for living together in solidarity is necessary” (doc. cit., no. 99).

Although the document suggests a series of short-term measures (topics 119 to 130), it does not outline the concrete contours of this Urban Reform. However, noting that it “comes up against various legal obstacles” (doc. cit., no. 99), it advocates an “Urban Land Statute” similar to the “Land Statute,” whose socialist and confiscatory nature the TFP has opportunely denounced (cf. Manifesto to the Brazilian People on Agrarian Reform of December 24, 1964, in Sou Católico: posso ser contra a Reforma Agrária? 239-244).

In making this point, the CNBB document rails against the current decisions of the Judiciary, which continues to apply the Civil Code promulgated in 1916:

“Our legislation regulating the possession and use of urban land reveals a profound inadequacy to the current reality, an inadequacy based on an outdated conception of the right to property, a private conception of an absolute right without any social responsibility. This is the conception of our Civil Code, promulgated in 1916, when Brazil didn’t even have 5 million people as an urban population, but this conception still predominates in our Judiciary’s decisions even as the 1969 Constitution confirmed the principle of the social function of property (art. 160, III). However, this principle, somehow made explicit in the drafting of a Rural Land Statute, paradoxically in a rapidly urbanizing country, has not yet led to the enactment of an Urban Land Statute, which is said to be the subject of a government project” (doc. cit., no. 100).

The document warns there will be a social revolution if this is not done: “The acceleration of the urbanization process is transferring to the city a conflictual burden that could take on the dimensions of a confrontation between the many who have little to lose and the few who have much to lose” (doc. cit., no. 113). “In practice, refusing to work for these reforms, which are capable of leading to a global change in society, means provoking the radicalization of the change process” (doc. cit., no. 115).

However, let no one think the Brazilian bishops who approved this document will be satisfied with mere reforms. They want a global change in the socio-political-economic system: “Implementing the necessary reforms must not lead to the illusion that these are sufficient. To eliminate structural injustice, it is important to aim for new models of city organization, which in turn requires a change in the current socio-political-economic model” (doc. cit., no. 116).

What system are the bishops proposing to replace the current one with? The document doesn’t say. It might be a middle ground between the Western capitalist system and the Soviet communist system, such as the self-managing socialism advocated by Mitterrand (see Part One, Chapter Four, 1 & 2).

[24] It seems that the expression was launched in Brazil by the great Catholic thinker Carlos de Laet, President of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, at a May 8, 1902 lecture at the Catholic Youth Circle in Rio de Janeiro.

“Press tyranny! Yes, press tyranny. Now the word is out, le mot est lancé… Nescit vox missa reverti—there’s no going back on what has been said, and I have no choice but to justify my thesis.

“Gentlemen, one of the great singularities of our times is that people keep fighting tyrannical ghosts but are indifferent to real tyrannies. Revolutions overthrow monarchs, who are sometimes magnanimous shepherds of their peoples. In the past, the latter used to cut off their heads, but today, they don’t even do them that honor: they’re content to sack them and make them embark at a moment’s notice because they know few kings are still aware of their providential mission and duty to resist. On the other hand, they proclaim that the capital is a tyrant and a fierce mob is ready to riot against every capitalist and businessman when they think their rights have been undermined. Yet, gentlemen, the people have not understood that one of the greatest tyrannies against them is that of the press. Far from understanding it, they consider it a safeguard of their interests and the vindicator of their rights. It is against this sophistry that I now protest.

“What is tyranny, gentlemen? While the scholastics call omnis definitio periculosa, I don’t think I err by defining tyranny as the undue and oppressive power exercised by one or a few against the vast majority of their fellow citizens. This definition is wonderfully suited to the so-called power of the press.

“Yes, it is the power of a few over the masses. Count the immense number of men who don’t and cannot appear in the press, some because they lack the skills, others because they don’t like this kind of activity, and others because they lack the money or relationships that would open the doors of newspapers to them. On the other hand, count the tiny number of journalists and tell me if theirs isn’t a real oligarchy, the frightful dominance of a small group of men over almost all of their fellow citizens.

“What power does this tiny group wield? Enormous.

“The press can effectively influence a country’s government, constituting what has been called the fourth branch of the State” (O frade estrangeiro e outros escritos, Edição da Academia Brasileira de Letras, Rio de Janeiro, 1953, 80-81).

[25] In October 1979, General Figueiredo’s government created the Secretariat for the Control of State Companies (SEST), under the Planning Secretariat. SEST aimed to survey the complex of state-owned companies and effectively control their budgets and development plans.

Later, in July 1981, the President issued a decree setting up a Ministerial Commission to study and promote the gradual privatization of state-owned companies.

From the creation of these bodies to the present day, the government has encountered notorious difficulties in controlling the deficit of State companies as a bloc and implementing a significant privatization process.

In recent statements, the economic authorities have blamed the excessive nationalization of the economy for the difficulties encountered in controlling inflation and reducing the balance of payments bottleneck, problems compromising the very foundations of the Brazilian economy.

[26] This description of the current attitude of the Fourth and Fifth Branches does not include any animadversion against the media or the CNBB. Instead, it manifests profound disagreement with the course that both branches are following in fulfilling their high missions.

Expressed here in serene and courteous language, this disagreement is based on a disinterested and Christian observation of the national reality. As far as the BCCs are concerned, they are also based on plentiful documentation. Thus, this book only helps the Fourth and Fifth Branches to see reality.

If either branch were to take issue with what we are saying, for example, by waging a defamatory campaign as a vendetta against the TFP, it would cast doubt on the authenticity of its impartial and ecumenical convictions, as both have made a large number of pronouncements over the last few years based on the right to disagree. It would be astonishing if they were to deny this right when disagreeing with them.

[27] Decree 119-A of the Provisional Government established the separation between Church and State on January 7, 1890. The Constitution of February 24, 1891, confirmed the separation.

[28] This is just a statement of fact. The doctrine of the Church, however, advocates the union between the two Powers, the fruits of which are magnificently described by Leo XIII in his Encyclical Immortale Dei of November 1, 1885:

“There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies” (Acta Sanctae Sedis, Typografia Plyglotta S.C. de Propaganda Fide, 1885, vol. XVIII, 169). https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01111885_immortale-dei.html. Accessed on 9/11/2024.

In contrast to this description, Monsignor Angelo Dell’Acqua, Substitute of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, underlines the fact that “as a result of the religious agnosticism of the States,” the Church’s mentality has been “dampened or almost lost in modern society” (Letter to Cardinal Carlos Carmelo de Vasconcellos Motta, then Archbishop of São Paulo, regarding the 1956 National Thanksgiving Day).

On this subject, see also Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, The Church and the Communist State: The Impossible Coexistence, https://www.tfp.org/the-church-and-the-communist-state-the-impossible-coexistence/. Accessed 9/11/2024.

[29] The book I’m a Catholic: May I Oppose Agrarian Reform?, Chapter Four, 67-75 expounds at length on the relationship between the spiritual and temporal powers.

[30] Cf. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, A Igreja ante a escalada da ameaça comunista – Apelo aos Bispos Silenciosos [“The Church Facing the Escalating Commnist Threat—An Appeal to the Silent Bishops”] Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 4^ª ed., 1977, 82; Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and Carlos Patricio del Campo, Sou católico: posso ser contra a Reforma Agrária? Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 3^ª ed., 1981, 72.

[31] The First Vatican Council’s Constitution Pastor Aeternus for the infallibility of the pontifical definitions. It teaches that the Pope is infallible when “he speaks ‘ex-cathedra,’ that is, when in the use of his privilege of Master and Shepherd of all Christians, and by his supreme apostolic authority, he defines the doctrine, which, in matters of faith and morals, must be upheld by the entire Church” (Denzinger-Umberg, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Herder, Barcelona, ed. 24, 1946, no. 1839). [our translation]

Therefore, Four conditions are necessary for a statement to constitute a teaching of the extraordinary pontifical Magisterium:

(1) The pope must speak as the universal Master and Shepherd.

(2) He must make full use of his apostolic authority.

(3) He must exteriorize the will to define.

(4) He must teach on matters of faith or morals.

The papal pronouncement is not infallible in itself if one of these four conditions is missing.

However, infallible pontifical teaching can also occur in the pope’s ordinary Magisterium, in which each pronouncement is not infallible in itself, as is generally the case with encyclicals, allocutions, etc. Thus, when a large series of popes teach the whole Church constantly and for a long time the same doctrine as an integral part of revealed Doctrine, one must admit the infallibility of this Magisterium since otherwise it would lead the Church into error (Cf. Josephus A. de Aldama S.J., Mariologia, in Sacrae Theologiae Summa, BAC, Matriti, 1961, vol. III, p. 418). [our translation]

According to the classic formula of Saint Vincent of Lerins, we must believe that which has been taught always, everywhere and 18 by everyone: “quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus.” The assistance of the Holy Ghost would fail if a doctrine taught under those three conditions could be false. However, one must not understand that adage in an exclusive sense, that is as if infallibility through the continuity of the same teaching existed only when those three conditions were fulfilled.

Theologians also list several other cases in which the pope’s infallible teaching can occur: Canonizations (always), the Liturgy, ecclesiastical laws, and the approval of Rules of Religious Orders and Congregations.

What is said of papal teaching also applies to the unanimous teaching of the bishops in union with the pope. Thus, the solemn pronouncement of the bishops in union with the Pope – the extraordinary Universal Magisterium – is also infallible in itself. However, each pronouncement is not itself infallible in the ordinary Universal Magisterium, that is, in the common Magisterium of the bishops in union with the pope.

Is it possible for some papal or conciliar documents to frontally oppose infallible teachings of the past? Clearly, if the new statement is also infallible, such an opposition cannot exist. But if the new statement is not infallible, authors of weight such as Saint Robert Bellarmine, Suarez, Cano, and Soto consider that hypothesis to be theologically possible. And it is obvious that a Catholic should then remain faithful to the infallible doctrine. This hypothesis would lead the studious to a centuries-old question that the greatest theologians of modern times have particularly applied themselves: the possibility of a heretic Pope (cf. Arnaldo V. Xavier da Silveira, Can Documents of the Magisterium of the Church Contain Errors? Can the Catholic Faithful Resist Them? The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, Spring Grove, PA., 2015. https://s3.amazonaws.com/all-pdfs/Books/CDMCCE.pdf. Accessed on 9/11/2024.

[32] In other words, the definitions imposed on all Catholics by the Supreme Magisterium, as well as the uniform teaching of its ordinary and universal Magisterium over the centuries (cf. Denzinger-Umberg, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Herder, Barcelona, ed. 24, 1946, nos.1683 and 1792).

[33] On this crisis in Brazil, see Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, A Igreja ante a escalada da ameaça comunista – Apelo aos Bispos Silenciosos Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 4^ª ed., 1977; Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Indigenous Tribalism, the Communist-Missionary Ideal for Brazil in the Twenty-First Century, American TFP.

[34] Fr. Battista Mondin, a professor at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome and a regular contributor to L’Osservatore Romano, states: “The first impetus for the development of a theology of liberation was given by the famous conference of Latin American bishops held in Medellin in 1968. In that event, the Church of South America laid the foundations of liberation theology” (Os teólogos da libertação, Edições Paulinas, São Paulo, 1980, 30). [our translation]

Similarly, Raul Vidales writes in the magazine Concilium: “Liberation theology acquired its right to citizenship at the CELAM meeting in Medellin (1968). If one cannot say that it was born on that occasion, we must nevertheless note that this circumstance marked its official reception and gave impetus to the future movement and theological work in the perspective of liberation. … It is, therefore from Medellin onwards that the commitment, theological reflection and even literary production on the theme of liberation not only become explicit but also intensify” (“Acquisizioni e compiti della teologia latino-americana,” Concilium, no. 4, 1974, 154, apud Fr. Battista Mondin, op. cit., p. 30, note 9).

[35] These are the Pontiff’s words:

“In fact, today, this phenomenon occurs in many places—the phenomenon is not a new one—”re-readings” of the Gospel, the result of theoretical speculations rather than authentic meditation on the word of God and a true commitment to the Gospel. They cause confusion by diverging from the central criteria of the faith of the Church, and some people have the temerity to pass them on, under the guise of catechesis, to the Christian communities.

“In some cases either Christ’s divinity is passed over in silence, or some people in fact fall into forms of interpretation at variance with the Church’s faith. Christ is said to be merely a “prophet”, one who proclaimed God’s Kingdom and love, but not the true Son of God, and therefore not the center and object of the very Gospel message.

“In other cases people claim to show Jesus as politically committed, as one who fought against Roman oppression and the authorities, and also as one involved in the class struggle. This idea of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive man from Nazareth, does not tally with the Church’s catechesis. By confusing the insidious pretexts of Jesus’ accusers with the—very different—attitude of Jesus himself, some people adduce as the cause of his death the outcome of a political conflict, and nothing is said of the Lord’s will to deliver himself and of his consciousness of his redemptive mission.

And further on: “A certain uneasiness is at times noticed with regard to the very interpretation of the nature and mission of the Church. Allusion is made, for instance, to the separation that some set up between the Church and the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is emptied of its full content and is understood in a rather secularist sense: it is interpreted as being reached not by faith and membership in the Church but by the mere changing of structures and social and political involvement, and as being present wherever there is a certain type of involvement and activity for justice. This is to forget that “the Church receives the mission to proclaim and to establish among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God. She becomes on earth the seed and beginning of that Kingdom” (Lumen Gentium, 5).” Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, vol. II, 1979, 192-193). https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1979/january/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19790128_messico-puebla-episc-latam.html. Accessed on 9/11/2024. See also Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, “A mensagem de Puebla: notas e comentários,” Folha de S. Paulo, March 26, 1979, April 26, 1979, and May 7, 14 and 19, 1979).

[36] One of the most embarrassing objections for liberation theology and the BCCs, which do not state categorically that the traditional popes erred, is how to do this without harming the coherence between popes. This is essential since the popes are authorized and, (depending on the circumstances), infallible teachers of the invariable teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Jesus Christus heri et hodie, ipse et in saecula: “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same forever” (Heb. 13:8). The only way to get rid of this difficulty is to evade it. In turn, the only way to avoid it is to describe the contrast between the Church’s traditional socio-economic teachings and liberation theology as being different only in their nuances. This vague and, therefore, ambiguous formulation is especially unacceptable when dealing with a subject that does not allow for the slightest ambiguity. What precisely is a “nuance” in a matter like this? The word “hue” itself has so many nuances! However, whatever meaning one gives it, it should be noted that none bridges the differences or rather contradictions as glaring as those between liberation theology and the traditional teaching of the Supreme Magisterium of the Church. John Paul II pointed out the seriousness of this contradiction in his Puebla address at the opening of the Third General Conference of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops (see Part One, Chapter Four, Note 3).

However, as pointed out (Part One, Chapter Four), none of this has prevented liberation theology from continuing to spread and even prosper with impunity in the BCCs to the point of becoming the essential motivation of their leaders and activists, who, in turn, gradually (and initially implicitly) inoculate it in their recruits.

[37] The existence of psychological warfare is recognized by both Western experts and communists:

Soviet Marshall Nikolay Bulganin states: “Modern warfare is a psychological war, and the Armed Forces should only serve to stop armed attack or eventually to occupy a territory conquered through a psychological action” (apud Hermes de Araújo Oliveira, Guerra revolucionária, Biblioteca do Exército Editora, Rio de Janeiro, 1965, p. 60).

Terence H. Qualter of the University of Waterloo in Iowa observes: “Originally, psychological war was planned as a preliminary for military action, to demoralize the enemy soldiers before the attack was launched, or even as an auxiliary to the military action, expediting and reducing the costs for victory. Today, it has become a substitute for military action. … A defeat in Cold War could be as real and as definitive as a military defeat, and, certainly, it would be followed by military defeat” (Propaganda and Psychological Warfare, New York: Random House, 1965, XII-XIII).

General Humberto B. Martins, Commander of the Military Academy of Portugal, has this to say about it: “A new secret arms was discovered and is habitually wielded by those who strive to achieve their complete hegemony in Europe and Asia. These lethal methods, based fundamentally on the study of waves of psychologically maneuvering the masses, are masterly joined to convergent forces that aim for the annihilation of the moral, economic, and military structures of the nations targeted in each phase” (Preface to the book by Hermes de Araujo Oliveira, Guerra Revolucionaria, Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exercito, Editora, 1965, 21).

French specialist Maurice Megret observes that “from Clausewitz to Lenin, the evolution of the techniques and the progress of the psychological sciences were conspiring to confer to psychological warfare the almost magical powers of an ‘art of subversion’“ (La guerra psicológica, Buenos Aires: Editorial Paidos, 1959, 31).

Roger Mucchieli, another well-known French expert, adds:

Another eminent French expert, Roger Mucchieli, adds this: “The classic conception of subversion and psychological war would picture it as one weapon of war among others utilized during the time of hostilities, and put aside at its conclusion. Today’s States, immobilized by this archaic definition, do not understand that psychological war has debunked the classic distinction between war and peace. It is an unconventional war, a stranger to the norms of International law and the rules of conventional warfare; it is a total war that defies the lawmakers and pursues its objectives from the shelter of its codes. … “The modern war is, above all else, psychological, and its relation to classic weapons is inverted. Today the combat is in the (guerilla) field, which has become an auxiliary of subversion” (La subversion, Paris: Bordas, 1972, 26-27).

Mucchieli explains that “subversion (such is the name given to it as well as others they call psychological war) is not an agitation, nor a political propaganda properly speaking; it is neither an armed conspiracy nor a force that mobilizes the masses. It is a technique of weakening the power and demoralizing the people. This technique is based on the understanding of the laws of psychology and psycho-sociology because it aims as much at public opinion as at the power and the armed forces at the latter’s disposal. As we will describe, it acts upon public opinion by subtle and convergent means. “Subversion is, therefore, more insidious than seditious. The destruction of the State (When it deals with internal subversion) or the overthrow of the enemy (when it deals with organized subversion on the outside) are sought and obtained by a radically different means of revolution (understood in the sense of popular uprising) and of war (understood in the sense of a confrontation between adversary armies and of territorial battle). The targeted State will sink itself in the indifference of the ‘silent majority’ (because this is a product of the subversion); the enemy army will cease to fight because it will be completely demoralized and disarticulated by the scorn that surrounds it” (ibid., p. 7). Marius Trajano T. Neto, from the Brazilian Army, discerningly concludes that “The Revolutionary War is … much more a War of Souls than of Arms” (A guerra revolucionaria o misoneismo, in Military Review, Port. ed., August 1974, p. 53, apud Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in collaboration with Gustavo Antonio Solimeo & Luis Sergio Solimeo, The CEBS … Much is Spoken About Them, But Little Is Known – The TFP Describes Them As They Really Are, São Paulo, 1984, note 2, 83-85).

[38] In the 1933-1934 elections to the Constituent Assembly, the minimum “Catholic requirements” were religious education in public schools, the indissolubility of the marriage bond, and religious chaplaincies in the Armed Forces, hospitals, prisons and other public establishments. They were all introduced in the 1934 Constitution.

[39]Most Rev. Alberto Gaudêncio Ramos, Archbishop of Belém do Pará, gives an impressive account of how documents are studied, debated, voted on and approved at CNBB’s General Assemblies (the archbishop specifically deals with the document Church and Land Problems, approved at the 18th General Assembly in February 1980. The subtitles are ours):

How they study:

“First, I should clarify how these CNBB documents are approved. Sometime before the Assembly, each bishop receives a preliminary draft of the subject to be dealt with. I confess that I rarely have the time to study it in depth. I almost always do it during the flight, as do many other busy bishops like me.”

“The commission … accepts or rejects at its [own] discretion.”

“When the assembly opens, a rapporteur briefly presents the various topics, after which everyone goes to the ‘integrated groups’ of bishops, priests, religious and laypeople from the most diverse parts of Brazil. A specially appointed committee collects comments from the various circles and draws up a new draft, which is then mimeographed and distributed. In plenary, many people ask to speak to clarify certain points, ask for corrections, emphasize other points, etc. These oral and written interventions are forwarded to the committee, which exhaustively selects and groups similar opinions and accepts or rejects them at its discretion. New study circles are held, now made up of bishops from the same region.”

How they vote

“There are also debates in plenary for highlights or corrections, and approval is given item by item by raising a green, yellow or red card. The Regional Secretaries count the cards and take the result to the secretariat table in a low voice, and there can be a margin for misunderstandings or distractions.”

In the final rush, “the tendency is to approve everything that comes along.”

“The approval of such important documents is almost always done in haste when many bishops have already left at dawn when everyone is tired, and some are looking at their watches, already on a bus to the bus station or the airport… It’s clear that, in these circumstances, the tendency is to approve everything that comes along.

“We all leave without the final text because some changes are made at the last minute, and the whole thing is still subject to editorial fine-tuning.”

Critique

“We cannot, therefore, say that we understand ‘the attitude of the bishops who, like Bishop Luciano, refrained from signing it.’ No one signed any documents. Only the attendance sheets were signed. It would be difficult to obtain unanimity of thought on non-doctrinal issues from nearly 230 heads. That’s why my combative and intelligent friend, Bishop Luciano Cabral, can perhaps say that he doesn’t agree with all the expressions, arguments and events mentioned. I also raised my red card on some points, but the majority beat me.

“The document is now being bombarded by economists, capitalists, agronomists, government officials and other competent people. It should not be forgotten that the bishops do not intend to give technical lessons to the learned.”

“We can hold our hands up [for correction] to acknowledge the shortcomings of the work carried out in the manner described above. However, even if there is some inaccurate data, and not all landowners deserve our reproach, we hope that the document will at least serve as a warning to those who may have erred and as a protest against the abuses being committed in some parts of the country” (“Terra a terra,” section “Recanto do Pastor,” in Voz de Nazaré, 3/16/1980, 1st page).

[40] Cf. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, A Igreja ante a escalada da ameaça comunista – Apelo aos Bispos Silenciosos [The Church Facing the Escalating Communist Threat—An Appeal to the Silent Bishops], Editora Vera Cruz, São Paulo, 1976, 4 printings, 51,000 copies.

Only the bishops did not keep silent about this book. Cardinal Arns published two official notes of protest, one of them jointly with his eight auxiliary bishops. Also speaking out was Bishop Ivo Lorscheiter of Santa Maria, then Secretary General of the CNBB and then Secretary-General of that episcopal body, and, finally, Archbishop Helder Câmara of the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife, who issued two notes opposing the book. In the various press releases responding to these notes, the book’s author pondered that they only protest without producing any refutation or documentation. Indeed, no rebuttal has come to light to this day.

The bishops who were already silent before the Appeal’s publication seem to have remained silent while these events were taking place and continue to be so to this day.

[41] The struggle for life in the big cities couldn’t eliminate this state of mind. Neither has the torrential immigration flow that poured into Brazil in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century, establishing many diverse ethnicities and traditions here.

The consonance of this traditional and persevering Brazilian state of mind with the precepts and advice of the Gospel shows that it largely results from Christian influence. Nothing could be more effective in eliminating it than methodically instilling in it, through CNBB’s influence, precisely the opposite: the disordered radicality of class hatred and revolutionary spirit.

Liberation theology, so widespread in the Basic Christian Communities, creates all the favorable conditions for this. And in turn, class hatred leads to violence.

There can be little doubt about the Marxist character of liberation theology (see Part One, Chapter Two, 1). The “People of God,” much talked about by the “Catholic left,” is understood to be made up precisely by the poor, who supposedly form the Mystical Body of Christ by their own nature (cf. Part One, ibid.). According to them, the oppressed or “People of God” are the new Messias (see Part One, ibid.).

Finally, they describe the rich as the scourge of the earth and the greatest evildoers against society (see Part One, ibid.): a type of crime that socialism tends to consider the greatest and almost the only one, contrary to the individualist and capitalist order, which considers crimes against the individual almost exclusively.

[42] See the list of works published by the TFP in this volume.

Basic Christian Communities: Much Is Said About Them, But Little Is Known. The TFP Describes Them As They Are (1982), Part One – The BCCs’ Goals in the Brazilian Context

Contents

Basic Christian Communities:

Much Is Said About Them, But Little Is Known.

The TFP Describes Them As They Are

(1982)

Part One

The BCCs’ Goals in the Brazilian Context

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Introduction

An Alternating Optimism-Discouragement Syndrome Lulls Brazilian Social Elites. This Study Is a Call to Action

Chapter One

The Reach of TFP’s Doctrinal Enlightenment of the General Public

In Our Time of Media Chaos

Chapter Two

The Fourth Branch (Media) and Fifth Branch (CNBB)

Work Together to Impose Rural, Urban and Corporate Reforms in Brazil

Chapter Three

Distorting Beautiful Church Maxims to Favor CNBB’s Reformist Action

Chapter Four

The Church’s Self-Demolition Drama:

The Role of the Hierarchy, Liberation Theology, and the BCCs

Chapter V

An Emerging Power in National Politics, the BCCs—Under the CNBB—Seek to Instrumentalize the State in the Service of Their Crossless Crusade. A Renewed Appeal to Silent Bishops and Elites

Conclusion

Is It Possible to Resist the BCCs?

Contato