Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira (December 13, 1908 – October 3, 1995) was a Brazilian intellectual and

traditionalist Catholic Traditionalist Catholicism is a movement that emphasizes beliefs, practices, customs, traditions, liturgical forms, devotions and presentations of teaching associated with the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). ...

activist, best known for the foundation of the

Tradition, Family and Property Tradition, Family, Property (TFP; ) is an international movement of political/civic organizations of Traditionalist Catholic inspiration. The first TFP was founded by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in Brazil in 1960, inspired by his 1959 book ''Rev ...

organization.

Biography

Early life

Corrêa de Oliveira was born in

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

to João Paulo and Lucilia Corrêa de Oliveira, a devout Roman Catholic, and educated by

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

. In 1928 he joined the Marian Congregations of São Paulo and soon became a leader of that organization. In 1933 he helped organize the Catholic Electoral League, was elected to the nation's Constitutional Convention by the "Catholic bloc", and at 24 became the youngest congressman in Brazil's history. His view of the Church has been described as ultramontanist and his political ideology

anti-Communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

. Several of his articles in ''A Ordem'' from the early 1930s expressed views that Jews had amassed "vast wealth and, therefore, decisive influence on business affairs," and that Jews were among the founders of Communism. Corrêa de Oliveira wrote that the Jews, who unlike the Communists were not under surveillance by Brazilian security forces, were thus much more dangerous.

Activism

He assumed the chair of Modern and Contemporary History at the

Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo The Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (, PUC-SP), locally known as ''PUC'' or ''Catholic University'' ('), is a private and non-profit Catholic university. It is maintained by the Catholic Archdiocese of São Paulo. The university is ...

. He was also the first president of the São Paulo Archdiocesan Board of

Catholic Action Catholic Action is a movement of Catholic laity, lay people within the Catholic Church which advocates for increased Catholic influence on society. Catholic Action groups were especially active in the nineteenth century in historically Catholic cou ...

. Corrêa de Oliveira became concerned with what he saw as progressivist deviations within Brazilian Catholic Action, associated with the ideas of the French Catholic philosopher,

Jacques Maritain Jacques Maritain (; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aqui ...

and attacked these changes in his 1943 book, ''In Defense of Catholic Action''. With the arrival of a new archbishop in São Paulo in 1944, Corrêa de Oliveira lost his position as diocesan head of Catholic Action and in 1947 his directorship of the Catholic weekly ''Legionário'', which he had supervised since 1935. In 1951 he founded the magazine ''O Catolicismo'', together with the conservative bishops Antônio de Castro Mayer and Geraldo de Proença Sigaud. From 1968 to 1990 he wrote a column for the '' Folha de S.Paulo'', the city's largest daily newspaper. Corrêa de Oliveira's Catholic social activism found new targets with the advent of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (founded in 1952) and the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) (founded in 1955) supporting liberation theology, and also with the

Cuban revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

of 1959. To put his ideas into action, he founded the Brazilian Society for the Defence of

(TFP) in 1960. Corrêa de Oliveira travelled to Rome for the opening session of

Vatican II The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilic ...

, describing it as "a point in history as sad as the Death of Our Lord" in which the Church was faced by the generalized, co-ordinated, and audacious action of its internal enemies. Oliveira was accompanied by members of the Brazilian TFP who brought twenty trunks of TFP literature. During the first session of the Council Oliveira provided a secretariat which served Brazilian bishops Antônio de Castro Mayer and Geraldo de Proença Sigaud and other bishops of the traditional faction, who ultimately formed the '' Coetus Internationalis Patrum''. Corrêa de Oliveira's opposition to the direction of the Council continued, and in a 1976 addendum to his book, ''Revolution and Counter-Revolution'', he described Vatican II as "one of the greatest calamities, if not the greatest, in the history of the Church". His strong opposition led to him being described by liberal critics as a " revanchist" within the ultra-traditional faction. However Plinio and those bishops drifted apart, as not all of them demonstrated loyalty to the Pope, while Corrêa de Oliveira did. He served as president of the Brazilian TFP's national council until his death in 1995. His treatise, ''Revolution and Counter-Revolution'', inspired the founding of autonomous TFP groups in nearly 20 countries worldwide. An admirer of

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

, he was the author of 15 books and over 2,500 essays and articles.

Hermits of San Bento

Oliveira held his ultimate goal to be the creation of a Religious Order of Chivalry. Oliveira began organizing said order in the 1960s, under the name “Hermits of San Bento”. Oliveira believed this religious order would be the commando force of the TFP in an impending worldwide Catholic uprising.

Works

In the original Portuguese

* ''Em Defesa da Ação Católica'', 1943. * ''Revolução e Contra-Revolução'', 1959. * ''Acordo com o regime comunista: Para a Igreja, esperança ou autodemolição?'', 1963. * ''Reforma Agraria: Questão de Consciência'', 1964. * ''Declaração do Morro Alto: Programa de política agrária conforme os princípios de "Reforma Agrária - Questão de Consciência"'', 1964. * ''Baldeação ideológica inadvertida e Diálogo'', 1965. * ''IDOC e Grupos Proféticos: Em ascensão triunfal - A Heresia Modernista'', 1969. * ''A Igreja ante a escalada da ameaça comunista Apelo aos Bispos Silenciosos'', 1976. * ''Tribalismo indígena, ideal comuno-missionário para o Brasil no século XXI'', 1977. * ''Sou Católico: posso ser contra a reforma agrária?'', 1981. * ''Nobreza e elites tradicionais análogas nas Alocuções de Pio XII ao Patriciado e à Nobreza romana'', 1993.

Translated into English

* ''Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History'', 1993. * ''Revolution and Counter-Revolution'', first published in 1974; 3rd edn. (the most recent) pub. 2014
2002 digital edition

References

External links

Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property
— Under the control of the

Heralds of the Gospel The Heralds of the Gospel (; , abbreviated to E.P.) is a Catholic International Association of Pontifical Pontifical Right founded by Monsignor João Scognamiglio Clá Dias. It is active in 78 countries. History The Heralds were recognized as ...

Instituto Plinio Corrêa de Oliveria (Portuguese)
— Under the control of the TFP “Fundadores”
Revolution and Counter-Revolution ONLINE - in English

(Blog in honour of his 100th birthday, in German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oliveira, Plinio Correa De Brazilian anti-communists 20th-century Brazilian historians Brazilian Roman Catholics Catholicism and far-right politics Conservatism in Brazil Counter-revolutionaries Brazilian traditionalist Catholics Far-right politics in Brazil Catholic philosophers Roman Catholic activists 1908 births 1995 deaths 20th-century Brazilian philosophers Antisemitism in Brazil Academic staff of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo Brazilian monarchists Patrianovists Tradition, Family, Property