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Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
Introduction
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Historical Antecedents of the Ambience in which Catholic Action Emerged Attentively reading the papal documents published over the last two hundred years, one will notice their insistent reference—sometimes in language reminiscent of the prophets of old—to a catastrophic social collapse that would result in the disarticulation and destruction of all the values of our civilization. a) Disorganization of the Liberal States The French Revolution was the first confirmation of these previsions. It introduced in the political terrain a devouring and progressive agitation that shook the most solid institutions of that time and prevented their replacement by any others equally durable. The contagion of this political fire spread from the constitutional sphere to the economic and social fields, and audacious theories, promoted by worldwide organizations, completely undermined every feeling of security in a convulsed Europe. The clouds accumulating on the horizon were such that Pius XI said that it was already the time to ask if this universal affliction were not announcing the coming of the Son of Iniquity, prophesied for the last days of mankind: These things [contemporary misfortunes] in truth are so sad that you might say that such events foreshadow and portend the "beginning of sorrows," that is to say of those that shall be brought by the man of sin, "who is lifted up above all that is called God or is worshipped" (2 Thess. ii, 4). (1) And thus, even against our will, the thought rises in the mind that now those days draw near of which Our Lord prophesied: "And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold" (Matt. 24:12). (2) b) Universal Panic In fact, the worldwide conflict dissipated the last vestiges of optimism from the Victorian era and laid bare the hideous wounds that covered contemporary civilization, like leprosy, from top to bottom. The souls deceived by the fallacious and brilliant appearance of the prewar society and still slumbering unconcernedly under their liberal illusions abruptly woke up, and the need for vast and drastic measures of salvation to prevent the imminent ruin became obvious to all. c) Dictatorships Then the great leaders of human masses rose up and began to drag behind them the multitudes terrorized into a state of delirium, and to promise simple solutions through the most diverse legislative reforms. d) The Supreme Catastrophe This was precisely the tragedy of the twentieth century. The Popes had proclaimed repeatedly that only a return to the Church would save mankind. However, the solution was sought outside the Church. Rather than promoting the reintegration of man into the Mystical Body of Christ and, implicitly, his moral regeneration, an attempt was made "to defend the city without God's help," a vain effort whose failure dragged us to the mortal pangs of the present conflagration. (3) This frenetic, disorderly, hallucinating search for and acceptance of any solution, however harsh it might be, as long as it is not the solution that is Christ, was the last catastrophe in this chain of errors, which from link to link, led us from the first denials of Luther to the present bitterness. It will be difficult to predict the future, and such is not the aim of this book. Of the exposition made so far, let us keep only this notion: the anxious and hallucinating search for a radical and immediate solution was the great worry that, consciously or unconsciously, seized us all in the two most recent decades of this terrible twentieth century. Like shipwreck victims, men try to grasp even at straws floating on the waves, attributing saving qualities to them. The delirium of shipwreck has effects on its victims beyond the illusion of being saved by holding onto straw. When proper means of rescue are offered, they hurl themselves madly upon them, use them poorly, at times destroy them through ineptitude, and finally sink amidst the debris of the boats that could have saved them. Pius XI Founds Catholic Action Hopes and Triumphs This, unfortunately, is what happened with Catholic Action, and in no small degree. Endowed with a powerful mind and enlightened by the Holy Ghost, the immortal Pius XI beckoned to the world with the great remedy of Catholic Action and thus showed it the only means of salvation. How copious were the generous dedication and indomitable energies that the Pontiff's appeal was able to raise up! How many secure and lasting victories were won in areas where all circumstances seemed to presage a total collapse! Exaggerations The certainty that Catholic Action offered a remedy for contemporary evils and the imminence and scope of the expectations that a universal triumph of Catholic Action seemed to raise provided reason enough for much of the enthusiasm—in days convulsed by the most profound moral commotion—to be manifested in a less balanced way than would have been desired. There arose Messianisms with a highly nervous pitch and a passion for absolute action and immediate results that banished common sense far from certain environments otherwise filled with a generous fervor for Catholic Action. It would be difficult to say how much the sowing of cockle by the inimicus homo contributed to deviate so many people inspired by the most praiseworthy intentions into the field of errors already condemned by the encyclical Pascendi and the encyclical against Le Sillon. The reality is that an unwholesome Messianism started to throw the fundamental principles of Catholic Action in certain souls into delirium. And since truths which throb in delirium are ready to transform themselves into errors, it was not long before many new concepts began to assume an audacious character and ended up becoming unquestionably erroneous. Errors: a) Regarding Spiritual Life There from came a set of principles, or rather, tendencies, which diminish or extinguish the role of human cooperation in regard to piety, sacrificing it to a one-sided conception of the action of grace. Flight from occasions of sin, mortification of the senses, examinations of conscience, the Spiritual Exercises, all ceased to be properly understood. Because of a few real excesses in the use of these salutary methods, some concluded that it was necessary to relegate to oblivion or to openly fight that which the Church's wisdom had so clearly praised. Even the Rosary had its detractors. To enumerate the consequences following upon so many errors would be a lengthy task. b) Regarding Apostolate Side by side with the theological consequences and inspired by the same errors, others appeared carrying with them a good portion of truths, even providential truths. Under the pretext of breaking with routine, they talked about "apostolate of infiltration." The necessity of this apostolate is urgent. Nevertheless, nothing warrants, in the name of this truth now in open delirium like the others, making a radical condemnation of all the open, bold, and undisguised methods of apostolate. It could be said that human respect, which leads one to be silent about or sweeten the truth and avoid any fight and any argument, has become the source of inspiration for a new apostolic strategy. And this strategy, according to the desires of certain circles, should be the only one to have an officially recognized status in Catholic Action. At the same time, a spirit of unlimited concessions in face of the outbreak of new fashions and customs began to take shape. This attitude further disguised itself in the cloak of a serious obligation to do apostolate in ambiences proscribed by moral theology for any Catholic unwilling to fall from the supernatural dignity granted him at Baptism. c) Regarding Discipline It must be said to the credit of our clergy that it was noted very early that the authority of the priest, if exercised freely in Catholic Action, would quickly check the circulation of so many errors. Hence there arose a series of prejudices, sophisms, and exaggerations whose systematic fruit is the elimination of priestly influence in Catholic Action. How many priestly hearts will bleed with painful memories while reading these lines! Our wise and devout clergy well deserved the honorable acknowledgement that error could only spread over the ruins of its authority and prestige. The Reason for This Book In view of all this, and while this sowing of errors has not found general acceptance in Catholic Action, this providential instrument Pius XI gave the Church would already risk being turned against its own ends if the action of (fortunately) small groups where error did find enthusiastic adepts were not courageously checked. A superficial analysis of this situation would seem to indicate that it is not for laymen to initiate the refutation of such errors by means of a book especially dedicated to the subject. If, however, this is the first book on the subject, it is not the first refutation of rash doctrines about Catholic Action, nor the best among them. It seemed to us proper for the honor and defense of Catholic Action that a clear, filial and enthusiastic reaffirmation of the rights of the clergy and, implicitly, those of the hierarchy, come from a layman. Thus the eloquence of events will prove that Catholic Action is and wants to remain enthusiastically docile to authority; and that the doctrinal peculiarities we refute here will find both hierarchy and faithful united in the same repudiation, there being nothing more suitable for the requisites of the Church's decorum and Catholic Action's reputation. As can be seen, this book was not written to be a treatise on Catholic Action, setting out to give a general and methodical idea of the subject. It is, rather, a work written to say what Catholic Action is not, what it should not be, and what it should not do. We willingly assumed this painstaking task, as the most unpleasant responsibilities are the ones that we should embrace with the greatest love in the Holy Church of God. The Spirit in Which We Write It Why did we take on this onerous task? Among the multiple reasons is a hope to separate from error so much enthusiasm gone astray, so much wasted zeal, so much dedication that would give us the most ardent satisfaction were it only placed at the service of orthodoxy. Thus, it is with words of love that we bring this introduction to a close. Even if thistles tear our hands, even if we receive only ingratitude from those to whom we wish to extend the bread of good doctrine among the thorns of prejudice, we will feel amply rewarded for everything if the value of our sacrifice is used by Divine Providence to unite all souls in truth and in obedience: "ut omnes unum sint." (4) * * * An objection that could likely be leveled against this work is that the enemies of the Church may possibly exploit the doctrinal deviations of some members of Catholic Action. His Excellency the Most Reverend José Gaspar D’Afonseca e Silva, Archbishop of São Paulo, once recounted to us a fact that resolves the difficulty with all clarity. The illustrious prelate told us of a most distinguished French priest who once wrote a newspaper article in which he exposed serious omissions in a Catholic work in his country. A journalist hostile to the Church rejoiced, singling this out as proof that "Catholicism was dead." The priest eloquently replied that Catholicism would show weakness if it were to compromise with the errors that insinuate themselves into the ranks of the faithful; but, on the contrary, it manifests vitality when it eliminates the dregs and doctrinal impurities that attempt to intrude among them. * * * Suave Truths, Austere Truths We would not want to close this introduction without a clarification of capital importance. The errors we fight in the present book are characterized, in their great majority, by one-sidedness. It pleases many to see only the sweet, suave, and consoling truths in the doctrine of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord’s austere warnings, vigorous attitudes and sometimes terrible manifestations during His life are usually passed over in silence. Many souls would be scandalized—and that is the term—if they contemplated Our Lord wielding the whip to expel the vendors from the Temple, cursing deicidal Jerusalem, heaping recriminations upon Corozain and Bethsaida, stigmatizing the conduct and life of the Pharisees in phrases burning with indignation. Nevertheless, Our Lord is always the same, always equally adorable, good, and, in a word, divine, both when He exclaims, "suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God," (5) and when with a simple affirmation, "I am He," (6) uttered to the soldiers about to arrest Him in the Garden of Olives, He shows Himself so awesome that all fall immediately to the ground: the voice of the Divine Master provoking not only in their souls but even in their bodies the same effect as the firing of some of the most terrible modern-day cannons. Some souls find delight—and how rightly so!—in contemplating Our Lord and the expression of adorable meekness in His Divine Face when He recommended to His disciples that they preserve in their souls the immaculate innocence of doves. They forget, however, that immediately afterwards Our Lord counseled them to also cultivate the cunning of the serpent. Could the preaching of the Divine Master have had errors, omissions, or simply shadows? Dangerous One-sidedness Who could admit this? Let us expel very far from us any and every form of one-sidedness. Let us see Our Lord Jesus Christ as the Holy Gospels describe Him to us, as the Catholic Church shows Him to us, that is to say, in the totality of His moral attributes, learning from Him not only meekness, prudence, patience, clemency, love of one's enemies, but also his occasionally terrible and frightening strength, courageous and heroic combativeness that extended as far as the Sacrifice of the Cross, and most holy astuteness that discerned from afar the machinations of the Pharisees and reduced their sophistic argumentations to dust. This book was written precisely to restore—in the measure of its meager strength—the broken equilibrium in certain souls in regard to this most complex subject. However, before taking a stand for the austere truths, for the energetic and severe methods of apostolate so often preached by the word and example of Our Lord, and before claiming for them the place they merit in the admiration and piety of the faithful, we take pride in affirming clearly that one could say regarding the gentle and sweet truths of the Holy Gospels what Saint Thomas Aquinas said of the Blessed Sacrament: We should praise them as much as we can and dare, because they will never be praised enough. Character of This Work Let no trace of one-sidedness be seen in our thought or language. God forbid! Written to fight one-sidedness, this book would not want to fall in the opposite extreme. However, as neither space nor time allows us to write a work on the love and severity of Our Lord; as, on the other hand, the suave and consoling truths are already very well-known, we have taken upon ourselves only the more unpleasant but urgent task of writing about that which human frailty more easily leads the masses to ignore. It is as a consequence of this set of ideas, and this set alone, that we concern ourselves exclusively with the errors that we have before us and do not attempt to defend those "suave" truths which the followers of these errors accept…and exaggerate: It is superfluous to fight for undisputed truths. The Author Notes: 1) Pius XI, Encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor, May 8, 1928, no. 15, at www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_08051928_miserentissimus-redemptor_en.html 2) Ibid., no. 17. 3) [Trans.: World War II.] 4) “That they all may be one” (John 17:21.) 5) Mark 10:14. 6) John 18:5.
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