TFP
Communiqué
Editor's Note:
Recently, the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and
Property published a book entitled, Half a Century of Epic Anti-Communist
Struggle, detailing all the public actions carried out by the TFP since
its foundation in 1960 as well as a review of the history of the actions of the
founding associates of that organization from 1928 to 1960.
Just prior to the visit of John Paul II to that
country, a copy of this book, along with the following communiqué, was sent to
the Apostolic Nuncio in
Most
Excellent Sir,
D.
Carmine Rocco,
Apostolic
Nuncio to
I present to Your Excellency my respectful greetings
and ask your leave to enter upon the subject that I now wish to expound:
In addition to being the diplomatic mission of the
This being so, I am certain that repercussions about
the activities of the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family
and Property (TFP) frequently reach Your Excellency.
If there were no other reasons for this, the fact that
this Society wages a persevering combat against international Communism would
be sufficient; for this implacable adversary knows better than anyone else how
to spread counterinformation and detraction, and how
to make them reach even the most unexpected ambiances.
Given all these circumstances, I have nurtured the desire
of entering into contact with Your Excellency in order to keep you abreast of the
thinking, goals and methods of the TFP; of its expansion in Brazil; and of the
appearance of autonomous counterparts of it in this or that country of the
Americas and of Europe. I would likewise like to talk with Your Excellency
about the Ufficio Tradizione,
Famiglia, Proprietà
headquartered in
The book Half a Century of Epic Anti-Communist
Struggle containing abundant data about these matters having now been
published, I fulfill that desire of mine by offering it to Your Excellency.
This gesture of mine corresponds to the dispositions of soul of the directors,
associates, collaborators, and correspondents of the entity all over the
country.
Indeed, Your Excellency, even though the TFP is not,
according to its statutes, a specifically Catholic entity, all of those who
strive under the standard of the TFP feel honored that they are practicing
Catholics; within the ambiance and the life of the society — to which they
dedicate, with Christian patriotism, all the time that they can spare — they
find rich incentives to grow in the love of God and of the Church.
The non-Catholics who have joined the Society
(among whom are Protestants, Greco-schismatics, Jews, Buddhists, etc.), have
after a while been converted, becoming fervent Catholics.
The reason for these numerous conversions is that the TFP makes its
anti-communist action consist in a positive
aspect (that is, the enrichment of the three Christian values that the action
of Communism increasingly undermines all over the Earth: tradition, family and
private property) and a negative aspect (that is, the denunciation of the
errors that Communism contains in its bosom). The TFP — an association that is
essentially civic by its own nature — presents these errors based on the
traditional documents of the supreme Magisterium.
Thus it brings a large number of Catholics who have fallen away from the Sacraments,
especially among the youth, closer to the inspired wisdom of the Church; and it
does the same with non-Catholics. Impressed by the social doctrine of the
Church and aided by grace, these two groups gladly ascend to the great
religious and moral truths that are, as it were, the springs of the socio-economic
thinking of the Church. In this manner, on the basis of a notion developed
wholly in the temporal sphere, they are led to the Faith and to the effective
and ardent practice of our holy Religion.
Therefore, as a civic society, the TFP has the joy of
submitting itself lovingly and without restrictions to the teachings and moral
norms of the Church. On the other hand, however, because of the very fact that
it is a civic association, it acts exclusively in its own name without
involving the sacred Hierarchy in any way. In the enclosed book is the history
of the action carried out by the TFP since its foundation in 1960. Its last
chapter also contains a review of the history of the actions undertaken by the
present founding associates of the TFP from 1928 to 1960, during which time
they had the good fortune of working, for the same goals, with several Catholic
associations or officially Catholic institutions under ecclesiastical
direction.
I beg Your Excellency to see in this offering the
expression of our association's unshakable purpose to remain always faithful to
the sacrosanct religious principles that for over half a century now have been
orienting the actions of its directors; and of its entire devotion to the See
of Saint Peter, which is at one and the same time the foundation, the principle
of life, and the supreme symbol of the highest ideals of Christian
Civilization.
Asking Your Excellency for your precious blessing and
prayers, I am
Respectfully,
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
President of the National Council