The Furious Moderates

– Folha de S. Paulo, January 12, 1983 –
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
I revisit the points I discussed in my last article about the position five prominent Brazilian bishops have taken on the legalization of the Brazilian Communist Party.
1. As I see it, four of the five prelates who addressed the issue in Folha de S. Paulo (December 26, 1982) went beyond their authority and essentially supported the creation of a hidden yet harsh centrist dictatorship in Brazil — one disguised as a strange democracy where disagreement would no longer be a right. In such a system, freedom in the secular sphere would be limited to the right — actually, the obligation — to endorse whatever the bishops decide.
As emphasized in a previous article, I agree that the PCB should not be given the right to operate.
I am convinced that no democracy, nor any of the three legitimate forms of government, can recognize such a right. This is not because communist preaching itself is a serious threat. It is permitted in …More