Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

TFP Newsletter, vol. IV – No. 7 – 1984

Third Congress of Brazilian TFP Supporters

2,000 Participants Include International Delegates

IN JUNE, some two thousand supporters of The Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property — TFP gathered in Sao Paulo, Brazil for the Third Congress of TFP Supporters. Participants had the opportunity to hear lectures dealing with the primary aspects of the crisis of the contemporary world.

In addition to representatives from 15 Brazilian states, delegations of the TFPs from the United States, Canada, Spain, France, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, as well as supporters of the TFP from Australia and the Philippines were present at the Congress. Also, representing their suffering nations were a Cuban and an Angolan, both in exile.

The central theme of all the lectures was: the communist danger — and the action of the TFP in face of updated communist methods.

Slides, music and diagrams were used to illustrate the talks, which the audience followed with great attention. On display in the large hall adjoining the auditorium were attractive exhibitions with books, documents, graphs and posters illustrating the association's major campaigns.

The principal features of the program were three lectures in which Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira dealt with the TFP in light of contemporary problems. The world-renowned author and orator also focused on the dramatic perspectives for the TFP in Brazilas well as for the other TFPs and their kindred associations in dozens of countries on the five continents.

The high point of the Congress was the closing session, attended by almost two thousand people whose enthusiasm was fired by TFP heralds proclaiming a report of the initiatives taken by the 15 TFPs since the last Congress in October, 1983. This was followed by the closing address of Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira on the natural and supernatural reasons upon which the TFP and those who seek the same ideal base their hope of victory. Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira was interrupted many times in the course of his exposition by enthusiastic applause. 

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At the closing of the Congress, Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira analyzed a matter which is an apparent contradiction: If it is true that today's world is in an accelerated process of revolutionary dismemberment, how can the TFP's growing receptivity by the public be explained?

"In face of this universal and chaotic disorder that is more terrible in many aspects than the disorder of the world before Our Lord Jesus Christ was born, in face of this disorder, what light of hope is there, what perspectives of action are there for the TFP?" — With this question Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira enunciated the theme of his exposition.

"What would be necessary," he continued, "is a complex and subtle exposition on the psychology of man who fell into sin — or of the nations and the multitudes who fell even deeper — to explain how even in extreme circumstances and in the worst situations it is possible to speak to these souls; and furthermore, by virtue of something void of contradiction but rich in paradoxes, it sometimes happens that the possibilities for the good to act are greatest when evil is reaching its apex.

"And since we are speaking about evil, since we are speaking about men who run around and hurl themselves into the abysses of impiety and corruption," continued Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira, "the enchanting, profound and sublime parable of the prodigal son comes to mind. " Making an analogy between that parable and "Western Civilization, so secularized and so depraved, though still having some luminous marks of its Christian origin," he asked: "Is she not precisely a prodigal daughter of the Gospel? How long it has been since she inhabited the paternal home. The paternal home, in this sense, the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church at the time of the Middle Ages."

After calling to mind the story of the decadence of medieval Christendom in the Protestant, French and Communist Revolutions, and, in our days, the Anarchical Revolution which is a development of the Communist Revolution, Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira asserted that "what happened to the prodigal son has happened to the modern world: In cities of sin and error, it squandered its inheritance. Everything it received became a weight it could no longer endure. Bowed over, burdened by this weight it began to suffer...

"And so, bent beneath the weight of the events that oppressed him, for this reason, the prodigal son longed for the paternal home," continued the distinguished orator. He went on to ask: "Does the receptivity being given to the TFP in so many places not represent a state of reversal of opinion of the soul of Western man, in which he begins to suffer more than ever from contemporary disorder?"

After analyzing other aspects of the battle taking place inside the mind of contemporary man, and stressing that the mercy of God acts even when Divine Justice punishes, the orator read and commented at length on another biblical example, the fight of David against Goliath, in order to show how God ultimately grants victory to those who fight for the good cause.

Upon reaching the end of his exposition, Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira remarked that this "is the outcome of those who, at times of great difficulty, at times of great anguish, great affliction of the cause of the Good, that is, for the cause of the Church, go ahead, allow nothing to hinder them, confront anything, confident in the mercy of God, in the help of God, in the intercession of Our Lady."