The momentous summit of the chief executives of the American states — with the well-merited exclusion of the Cuban — is an opportune occasion for the Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) in the Americas to convey their convictions, apprehensions, and hopes in regards to our hemisphere and its future.
Worldwide, the TFPs constitute a vast family of autonomous organizations on six continents, whose work is governed by the traditional doctrines of the Holy Catholic Church. The first of the TFPs was founded in Brazil in 1960 by the renowned Brazilian Catholic thinker and man of action Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, whose implacable doctrinal combat against the advances of the contemporary anti-Christian Revolution on every front spans more than six decades of unblemished service to the Church and the world.
Inspired by this heroic examples, the TFPs have aimed their ideological weapons at international Communism, leftism within the Church, socialist and confiscatory legislation wherever it attacks the rights of private property, and the destructive cultural revolution devastating our “post-communist” world. Nor does the TFPs’ resolute resistance to the anti-Christian Revolution fail to combat the Kerenskys of our days: those moderate politicians who pave the way for its advance.
The unique influence of the educational campaigns waged by the TFPs is acknowledged by friend and foe alike. More than 500 books by scholars and other distinguished authors across the globe chronicle Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira’s prophetic role in unmasking the infiltration of progressivism into the Church since the 1930s and the TFPs’ preeminent role in preventing Latin American nations from falling prey to international Communism.
Since 1993, the twenty-six TFPs have joined hands to tell the world of Professor Corrêa de Oliveira’s masterful exposition, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII. This historic book has inspired letters of commendation from three Cardinals of the Roman Curia as well as from theologians and historians of world renown. Simultaneously published in Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, and Italian, the work provides positive guidelines to combat the diverse causes of contemporary chaos and cultural collapse. Above all, it sounds a clarion call to the traditional elites to fulfill their noble calling in the glorious restorations of Christian civilization.
The credibility merited by the actions of the TFPs and the responsibility we bear as loyal sons of the Americas impel us to submit to your gracious consideration the following statement of the TFPs regarding crises that — left unresolved — threaten to frustrate your legitimate aspirations of concord and prosperity, aspirations we share with the peoples of the Americas.
To construct a future for our hemisphere for our hemisphere that ignores these fundamental problems would be to build — in defiance of the Gospel — a house “upon earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6:49)
This statement written by Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, president of the national council of the Brazilian TFP, was unanimously endorsed by the boards of directors of the American TFP and its sister TFPs in the three Americas.
Raymond E. Drake, President
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP)
To the Eminent Participants in the Inter-American Summit Convening in Miami, Florida • December 9-11, 1994
The Americas on the Dawn
of the Third Millennium:
Convictions, Apprehensions,
and Hopes of the Hemispheric TFPs
Statement on the Hemispheric Problems
The TFPs of the Three Americas
1. Convey Their Concerns Regarding:
THE bewildering indifference, passivity, and even complicity of sundry ecclesiastical, political, intellectual, media, and financial circles towards the ineffectual communist regime in the land once called the Pearl of the Antilles and towards its aged inspirer and head Fidel Castro;
THE inconsistent double-standard applied by several institutions and governments of the Americas in their liberal, even conciliatory, policy toward Cuba’s regime, on the one hand, and their adamant, even armed, opposition to Haiti’s former regime on the other;
THE clever metamorphosis undertaken by countless figures of the far left after the fall of the Berlin Wall, who — without repudiating their revolutionary past nor renouncing their egalitarian goals — have attained powerful political posts simply by changing labels and adopting new methods of actions;
THE way such individuals exploit their political power to promote a virtual cultural revolution that deals a radical blow against fundamental principles of Christian civilization by numbing the wholesome reaction of public opinion;
THE destructive potential as detonators for socio-economic chaos displayed by Latin American terrorist and guerilla groups supported by outside forces;
THE continuing spiritual crises afflicting the Roman Catholic Church — with its inevitable consequence for civil society — and the concurrent progress made sects, animist religions, and even satanic movements.
2. Deplore:
THE arrogance with which homosexual militants claim alleged “rights” in direct opposition to the laws of God and of nature;
THE unspeakable pressure exerted by international institutions and social factions within the Americas on behalf of abortion, contraception, divorce, concubinage, euthanasia, and other evils destructive of the family, as typified by the UN conference in Cairo;
THE experimentation on human embryos — and analogous genetic and eugenic experimentation — that brutishly ignores elemental religious and ethical principles;
THE escalating drug trade and the schemes to legalize such deadly addictions;
THE ominous collaboration of the media in spreading the poison of anti-Christian “values” that corrode the very soul of civilization.
3. Profess Grave Reservations Regarding:
THE reckless rapidity with which certain political circles seek to hasten hemispheric integration, in ways that blur — if not obliterate — state borders, cultural characteristics, and even national sovereignties;
THE apparent lack of appreciation in these circles regarding the highly dubious consequences of such analogous social engineering as the Maastricht Treaty, which is strongly opposed by millions of Europeans;
THE inordinate, media-induced confidence and irrational fascination for economic development as the answer to all our problems, the profound spiritual and moral roots of which are routinely relegated to an inferior plane;
THE frenzied hopes which some place in the emergence of a cyber-civilization, in utter regard of its inherent perils and the serious detriments derived from the psychological, moral, and cultural transformation it would inevitably entail;
THE ever-escalating political, social, and economic influence of non-governmental organizations, many of which have specifically revolutionary agendas (such as those promoting a return to tribalism, antithetical to Christian civilization), as was evident in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and the international largesse lavished upon these NGOs;
THE imposition of draconian reductions — budgetary and otherwise — on noble armed forces of the hemisphere in the illusion of new national and international realities;
THE strident voices accusing some armed forces of violating the human rights of communist guerillas — voices so strangely silent in the face of the violent crimes perpetrated by revolutionary terrorists against urban and rural populations in important countries such as Peru and Colombia.
4. Publicly Call On The Leaders of Our Hemisphere Assembled in Miami To:
OPENLY discuss, in depth and detail, these and other sensitive and urgent problems impacting the future of the Americas, welcoming constructive debate without fear of disagreement;
PROPOSE sound solutions to these problems in full accord with the authentic Christian traditions that embody the legitimate aspirations of the peoples of the Americas;
ADOPT with all due diligence the political, economic, and educational measures needed to effect the immediate normalization of the situation of the Cuban people.
5. View With Hope:
THE dawning of a wholesome rejection of the anti-Christian Revolution on so many fronts by a growing number of the peoples of this hemisphere, particularly among the poor and working classes;
THE awakening of public opinion to the onslaught of television and other media outlets as conduits of immorality, which is particularly destructive to our children and youth;
THE rejection by the electorate of avowedly leftist presidential candidates in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and El Salvador;
THE loss of face of “liberation theology” and the collapse of its base communities, even among the most impoverished segments of the population;
THE waning of the West’s ideological obsession with egalitarianism, so advantageous to socialism and communism;
THE excellent prospects, solidly based on the firm foundation of Christian civilization, these developments have opened for cooperation between Latin America on the one hand and the United States and Canada on the other.
Accordingly, the TFPs of the Three Americas:
AFFIRM their deep and abiding conviction that when men resolve to cooperate with the grace of God the unfolding of history generates marvels. This is the lesson bequeathed us by pre-medieval and medieval Europe, which, beginning with decadent Latin populations and hordes of barbarian invaders, attained, under every point of view, a religious, cultural, and economic level without precedent;
PROCLAIM their unwavering certainty that despite the moral upheavals, material crises, and pitfalls of every kind of being prepared for the Americas by the enemies of the Church and Christian civilization, we shall witness the resplendent resurgence of Christendom throughout the Americas, as foreseen by Our Lady of Fatima in 1917 when She promised “In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph!”
São Paulo, December 6, 1994
PLINIO CORRÊA DE OLIVEIRA
President of the National Council of the
Brazilian Society for the Defense of
Tradition, Family and Property
This statement has also been signed by the presidents of the other Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) of the three Americas: Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.