V.

The Glorious Future of France

According to Saint Pius X

We close these considerations beseeching Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, to confirm with events the words of prophetic resonance of the holy and unsurpassable Pontiff Saint Pius X concerning France: “A day will come, and we hope it is not far off, when France, like Saul on the road to Damascus, will be enveloped in a celestial light and hear a voice that repeats to her: ‘My daughter, why dost thou persecute me?’ And to her response, ‘Who art thou, Lord’ the voice will reply: ‘I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It is hard to thee to kick against the goad, because in thine obstinacy thou destroyest thyself.’ And she, trembling and filled with wonder, will say; ‘Lord, what wouldst thou have me do?’ And He: ‘Arise, wash away the stains that have disfigured thee, awaken in thy breast the dormant sentiments and the pact of our alliance and go, first-born daughter of the Church, predestined nation, vessel of election, go as in the past, bear my name before all the peoples and the kings of the earth” (Consistorial Allocution Vi ringrazio, of November 29, 1911, in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Typis Poliglottis Vaticanis, Rome, 1911, p. 657).

“In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph,” Our Lady promised at Fatima. This is what we ask Her for France and for the world.

On the 64th anniversary of the last apparition of Our Lady at Fatima.

São Paulo, October 13, 1981

American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property Association Française pour la Défense de la Tradition, Famille et Propriété Centro Cultural Reconquista (Portugal)

Sociedad Argentina de Defensa de la Tradicion, Familia y Propiedad Sociedade Brasileira de Defesa da Tradiçao, Familia e Propriedade Sociedad Chilena de Defensa de la Tradicion, Familia y Propiedad

Sociedad Colombiana de Defensa de la Tradicion, Familia y Propiedad Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Defensa de la Tradicion, Familia y Propiedad Sociedad Uruguaya de Defensa de la Tradicion, Familia y Propiedad Sociedad Venezolana de Defensa de la Tradicion, Familia y Propiedad Young Canadians for a Christian Civilization Jovenes Bolivianos pro Civilizacion Cristiana Sociedad Cultural Covadonga – TFP (Spain)

Published in The Washington Post on December 9, 1981.

France: The Fist Crushes the Rose

The fist and the rose ...

A fist, rather like a boxer's, holds the stern of a rose, ready to crush it. The rose opens on the tip of the stem, as light and gracious as if it were in a porcelain vase.

It is not easy to make the meaning of these heterogeneous "heraldic" symbols explicit, especially when they are juxtaposed in this way. Do they symbolize the Marxist working class leading a country flourishing in liberty? Perhaps. In any case, had they been conceived to mean just that, they could hardly be more appropriate: They well express the hopes of freedom that "socialism with a human face" does its best to awaken.

But there is also something obscure and contradictory in these symbols. The aggressive and brutal fist seems as incompatible with the rose as a punch. One would say that such a fist could not fail to start crushing the rose. And if the rose could understand a fist like this, it would be shocked, stop smiling, and begin to wither.

The relations between socialism and an authentic and harmonious freedom are no different; no matter how emphatically it promises freedom, socialism, wherever established, begins to strangle it.

This, one can fear, may now be happening in glorious and beloved France, well before the end of the first year of selfmanaging government. This is the opportune moment to make this clear, for the Mitterrand Government, with the support of the socialist Communist coalition, is actively making propaganda for self-management all over the West.

A concrete example seems to adequately illustrate the apprehension that the fist may be crushing the rose. It concerns precisely one of those freedoms that the naive most expect the Mitterrand Government to preserve: the freedom of the press.

1. The Promise

It is well known that since December 9 of last year the thirteen Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFPs) have been publishing, in large newspapers of fifteen countries, a Message warning of the incompatibility between the perennial principles of Christian Civilization on one hand, and, on the other, the selfmanaging reform to which the Socialist Party promised to commit France in the 1981 elections. A gradual reform, yes, but also total, demolishing the right to own land, businesses and private schools, invading the family to organize children against their parents, and, in its end term, sparing not even leisure, the interior arrangement of homes, and the very person of every Frenchman. The Message was published in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the United States, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The TFPs found no obstacles to the publication of their Message as a paid advertisement in any of these countries. The newspapers opened up to them all the way. At no time did they feel that, by publishing the Message, they were committing themselves to views partially or totally not theirs. In so doing, these newspapers were strictly consistent with the democratic principles they proclaim as their own.

It would have been natural for the TFPs' Message to be published just as easily in the large French dailies, which pride themselves on professing the same democratic principles. But this time the TFPs had bitter experience to the contrary. They feel obliged to inform not only the English-speaking public about this, but also that of each country where the Message has been published.

2. The doubt

Leaving aside avowedly socialist or communist newspapers, the serene and elevated Message of the TFPs was successively submitted for publication to 6 French dailies with circulation over 100,000. However, all these papers refused to publish it. This attitude is inexplicable for several reasons, since: a) Newspapers which pride themselves on their democratic line, and which moreover are at variance with each other on important points, in this particular case are disconcertingly unanimous in their refusal to publish the document. Thus the thirteen TFPs are deprived of having their viewpoint, which opposes self-managing socialism, published on French soil. b) Furthermore, two of these newspapers had formally agreed to publish the TFPs' Message on December 15 of last year. (At the last minute the French TFP decided to postpone the publication because the attention of the public was then strongly attracted by the events in Poland.) This contract was so firm that, by mutual agreement, the agency negotiating the advertisement received payment in full on December 11. All this notwithstanding, on January 6 this agency advised the TFPs that the two dailies had just refused to abide by their agreement. The reason: none. c) Naturally, an arbitrary breach of contract exposes the company which owns both newspapers to a suit for loss and damages. But not even the perspective of such a predicament was enough to prevent their refusal. d) Advertisements are one of the most common sources of income both for this publishing company and the other companies which refused to publish the document. The size of this Message would make its publication particularly inviting. So, the refusal is contrary to the very nature of these journalistic enterprises as such.

At this point one has to ask: What is the reason for this united front of refusals curtailing the freedom of the TFPs in France? Far away on the horizon, only one explanatory hypothesis takes shape. As private organizations, the publishing companies which own these various papers can be placed at any moment on the list of self-managing enterprises by a legislative decision of the socialist-communist parliamentary majority. If that were to happen, their present owners would normally become mere managers or even lose any role in the company whatsoever.

Is it so surprising that these publishers deny the TFPs freedom of expression when their own freedom, at least potentially, has been so profoundly shaken? What is the real freedom of expression in a regime where a Damocles' sword hangs over the head of every publishing company, owner, a sword hanging from a string held by the government?

Whatever heat the opposition newspapers may de facto be permitted to show, their situation is, de jure, that of Damocles under the sword.

Incidentally, it is altogether possible that a heated opposition may not be as annoying to a government as another which courteously and serenely focuses on certain delicate topics which not all currents of opinion have noticed.

Now, the Message of the thirteen TFPs puts a finger on certain painful wounds unknown to the Catholic electoral bloc, which weighed decisively on the socialist side in the 1981 elections. Such is the case, for instance, when it focuses on how a compulsory self-managing regime is absolutely incompatible with the true Doctrine of the Church about the character of the right of property, which inheres by nature in every individual. The same applies when it points out how the doctrine and program of the Socialist Party place marriage, free unions and even homosexual unions on the same level.

It is not the intention of the TFPs to start a debate with newspapers so conditioned by the socialist self-managing Moloch. With this publication, the TFPs aims solely at making the public in the largest countries of the Free World see how confined freedom already appears to be at the beginning of the self-managing socialist regime. This should lead every citizen of the Free World to fear for his own personal freedom if self-managing socialism is implanted in his country.

Thus, one is led to believe that a curtain is being drawn around today's France. Not an iron curtain, nor one of bamboo. It is, as it were, an impalpable curtain of silence of the press, which will inevitably march toward becoming total.

This fact is what the TFPs are bringing to the knowledge of the whole West. The same French newspapers will be asked to publish this Communiqué. But even if there is a new collective refusal, the TFPs hope that the spreading of this Communiqué outside France may succeed in making it known to a large part of the French people. They also hope that it will open the eyes of the West to all that is contradictory and impracticable in the self-managing promise of socialism-with-freedom.

This finding has a far-reaching scope: Except for the promise of freedom, all that is left to the self-managing regime is its similarity to Communism.

4. The disappointment

The Message of the thirteen TFPs about self-managing socialism is making its way far and wide in the world. Along its course, it has met everything: furious hatred, baseless criticisms, inexplicable omissions, longstanding and luminous support from friends who have never let themselves be dishonored by fear, and innumerable new adhesions, some of them unexpected and magnificent.

This Communiqué is one more great step along this road. Consistent with the Message, it has to do not only with self-managing socialism, but also with Communism. All of this - and that which is yet to happen - will one day be written into history; the epic History of one of the supreme efforts undertaken In signo Crucis (in the sign of the Cross) to steer our agonizing Western civilization away from the final shipwreck toward which it is letting itself drift.

After the great campaigns of the TFPs against Communism - campaigns which have always been doctrinal and orderly - the communists keep silent. A little later, furious media attacks based merely on distortions or calumnies with no doctrinal content have been unleashed against the TFPs. Will this now happen once again? As the French popular saying has it, "he who lives will see."

São Paulo, February 11, 1982 Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

For the Brazilian TFP and, by express delegation, the TFPs and similar organizations of the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela,

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

President of the National Council of the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property

* Faced with the fact that six of the largest French daily newspapers had refused to publish their six-page paid advertisement exposing the ambitious designs of French self-managing socialism, the thirteen Societies for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFPs) issued a follow-up joint communiqué. The 2/3 of a page ad, also written by Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, President of the National Council of the Brazilian TFP, asks the question: "Is freedom of the press being curtailed in France today?"

The Communiqué, "France: The Fist Crushes the Rose," appeared in major newspapers in the same countries in which the original sixpage Message appeared over 40 leading dailes had been selected. The Washington Post and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2-25-82), The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News (2-26-82), The Daily Telegraph of London (3-2-82), Le Geneve Tribune of Switzerland (2-27-82) and The International Herald Tribune (3-10-82), to name a few

In March, the American TFP conducted a lightning campaign in the nation's capital blanketing Congress and other influential areas with copies of the same Communiqué In less than one day, personalized copies of the advertisement were delivered to the offices of 100 Senators, 435 Congressmen, 65 foreign embassies representing the Free World and 65 of the major news agencies having representation in Washington