Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Tradition, Family, Property – Magazine, November-December, 1995

Excerpts from the Sealed Testament of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira 

In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, my Mother and Lady. Amen.

I, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, legitimate son of Dr. João Paulo Corrêa de Oliveira and of Dona Lucília Ribeiro Corrêa de Oliveira, both now deceased, a Brazilian, native of this Capital of the State of São Paulo, where I was born on December 13, 1908, single, a lawyer and university professor, a resident in this same city, in full possession of my faculties, freely and voluntarily resolve to make this testament, for the disposition of my possessions after my death and for the recording of other final determinations, in the following form:

I declare that I have lived and hope to die in the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Faith, which I hold with all the strength of my soul. I cannot find sufficient words to thank Our Lady for the privilege of having lived since my very first days and of dying, as I hope, in the Holy Church. To it I have always devoted, currently devote, and hope to devote until my last breath absolutely all my love. All the persons, institutions, and doctrines I have loved in the course of my life and currently love, I have loved and love solely because they were or are in accord with the Holy Church, and in the measure to which they were or are in accord with the Holy Church. Likewise, I never opposed institutions, persons, or doctrines except insofar as they were opposed to the Holy Catholic Church.

In the same manner, I thank Our Lady—without being able to find adequate words—for the grace of having read and disseminated the Treatise of True Devotion to the Most Holy Virgin, of St. Louis Marie Grignion of Montfort, and of having consecrated myself to Her as Her perpetual slave. Our Lady was always the Light of my life and from Her clemency I hope She will continue to be my Light and my Help until the last moment of my existence.

Again I thank Our Lady—and with what emotion—for having granted me to be born of Dona Lucília. I revered and loved her to the utmost of my capacity and, after her death, not a single day passed without my remembering her with unspeakable longings. Of her soul I also ask that she assist me until my last moment with her ineffable goodness. I hope to meet her in Heaven amidst the luminous cohort of souls who most specially loved Our Lady.

I am fully conscious of having fulfilled my duty by having founded and directed my glorious and dear TFP. In spirit, I kiss the standard of the TFP that hangs in the Room of the Reign of Mary. The spiritual link that unites me to each member of the Brazilian TFP, as well as to those of the other TFPs, is such that it is impossible to mention any one in particular to express to him my affection. I ask Our Lady to bless each and every one of them. After death, I hope to be near Her, praying for all of them, thus helping them more efficaciously than in this earthly life.

I forgive with my whole soul those who have given me cause for complaint....

I have no instructions to give for the eventuality of my death; Our Lady will provide better than I. In any event, from the depth of my soul and on my knees, I beseech each and every one to be completely devoted to Our Lady all the days of their lives....

São Paulo, January 10, 1978