Tradition, Family and Property

Tradition, Family, and 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 Revolution and Counter-Revolution which became the TFPs' foundational text, later supplemented by his 1993 Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII. He remained president of the Brazilian TFP's national council until his death in 1995.

Religion, ideology, and structure

Some see the movement as more cultural and political than religious. From that perspective it can be seen as opposing its values of Tradition, Family, and Property to the French Revolution's values of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Its worldview has been characterized as an "extreme moralism, against divorce, against Communism, and against change." It has been pointed out that the group's citation of Catholic tradition is selective, drawing on speeches and encyclicals from the most conservative popes, including the 1864 Syllabus of Errors, while the social doctrine of the Church formulated from the pontificate of Leo XIII to the present is deliberately ignored.

Löwy's study of the interaction of religion and politics in Latin America used the international TFP to exemplify the most conservative of four tendencies within Latin American Catholicism: the one which "defend[s] ultra-reactionary and sometimes semi-fascist ideas." A recent study pointed out that "TFP draws on a rigid interpretation of Christianity to offer the faithful an all-encompassing ideological justification for what are, in essence, very conservative politics." It has been noted that similar religious movements "are benign compared to Tradition, Family and Property (TFP)" which is also "opposed by the Catholic leadership because of its beliefs and recruiting procedures." Some analysts see it as a fringe group within the Latin American Catholic church.

Institutionally, TFPs have been described as having a "chameleon-like identity". When dealing with the church, they describe themselves as a civic association of the laity, and therefore independent of ecclesiastical control; when dealing with civil society, they stress that they are a voluntary association inspired by religious ideals, and therefore not subject to certain civil regulations such as labor laws.

International expansion and cooperation

TFP is both a national organization and a transnational movement which shares fundamental beliefs, goals, publications, and even funding. Shortly after its foundation in Brazil in 1960, the TFP began a program of international expansion, beginning with a "Latin American Congress of Catholicism" in Serra Negra, Brazil, attended by about 350 Brazilians and about 20 representatives from other countries in Hispanic America. TFP sees this meeting as the beginning of its expansion, with the foundation of TFP offices, national TFPs, and affiliated organizations in 29 countries throughout the world, including Argentina (1967), Chile (1967), Uruguay (1967), Paraguay (1967), Peru (1970), Spain (1971), Bolivia (1973), Colombia (1971), Ecuador (1973), Portugal (1974), the United States (1974), Venezuela (1971), Canada (1975), Italy (1976), France (1977), United Kingdom (1980), Germany (1982), South Africa (1983), Australia (1988), India (1992), Poland (1995), Austria (1999), Ireland (2004), Belgium, Costa Rica, Lithuania, the Philippines, and New Zealand. This expansion produced what is claimed to be "the world’s largest anticommunist and antisocialist network of Catholic inspiration."

Although these TFPs described themselves as "autonomous anticommunist organizations inspired by the traditional teachings of the Popes", they cooperated effectively to advance their social and political agenda. A striking example occurred in 1981 when thirteen TFPs (and related organizations) published a six-page critique by Oliveira of Francois Mitterrand's Socialist government program to implement what was called "self-managing socialism". They were refused space for the essay by six French daily papers but they did publish it in 44 other major newspapers worldwide. The cost of placing each six-page advertisement in The Washington Post or the Toronto Globe and Mail was about $100,000.

Argentina

The Sociedad Argentina de Defensa de la Tradición, Familia y Propiedad was established in 1967, drawing on a group of conservative Catholics who had previously founded the magazine Cruzada, which opposed liberal Catholicism and socialism. In the late 60s the TFP gained the apparent support of the Argentine military regime when they called for a purge of progressive clergy from the Catholic Church. The publications of the Argentinian TFP have been described as embodying a discourse of violence legitimating the authorities' suppression of civil rights. In 1973 the Buenos Aires provincial police investigated military training activities conducted by the TFP. Around 1976 or 1977 a Father Vicente was forced to flee to Uruguay with the assistance of the Jesuit Provincial, Jorge Bergoglio (later Pope Francis), after having been threatened by TFP for preaching against the murder of three Pallottine priests and two seminarians.

Brazil

The Sociedade Brasileira de Defesa da Tradição, Família e Propriedade was founded in 1960 and flourished during conservative opposition to the land reform proposed in Brazil by the government of João Goulart. Goulart's land reform program was criticized by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, the economist Luis Mendonca de Freitas, and reactionary bishops Antonio de Castro Mayer and Geraldo de Proença Sigaud in their 1961 book, Agrarian Reform—A Question of Conscience, which treated private property as a moral absolute. The Brazilian TFP's campaign against what it termed "socialist and confiscatory land reform", provided the incentives leading to the military coup of 1964 as well as later repressive legislation. In 1968 the Brazilian TFP gathered two million signatures on a continent-wide petition campaign against Communist infiltration of the Catholic Church which placed it in clear opposition to the mainstream of the Brazilian hierarchy. TFP also urged the military government to arrest Archbishop Hélder Câmara for his support of land reform. In 1969 Câmara linked the TFP indirectly to the murder in Recife of his aide, Father Antônio Henrique Pereira Neto.

These actions, as well as TFP's strident opposition to liberation theology, led to a string of criticism beginning in 1970 from a number of bishops, including the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, which saw the TFP as destroying ecclesiastical unity. Notably, at their 23rd general assembly in 1985 the Brazilian Bishops criticized TFP for its "lack of communion … with the Church in Brazil, its hierarchy, and the Holy Father" and for its "esoteric character, the religious fanaticism, and the cult given to the personality of its leader and his mother." The Brazilian TFP replied the next day that "justice forbids TFP from accepting as valid vague and generic accusations like those in the NCBB text. Specific facts and proofs must be presented." The American TFP attributed the bishops' critique to "the tragic influence of Marxist liberation theology among Brazilian bishops".

The Brazilian TFP split into two factions after the death of its founder in 1995 and a dispute over the rights to the society's name and assets has been progressing through the Brazilian courts. As of 2013 the final decision was waiting on action of the Supreme Court. One faction, the Heralds of the Gospel, founded by Monsignor João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, was formally approved by the Vatican in 2001 as a lay association of the faithful. The Heralds moved away from political action and, despite their lay status, adopted a semi-religious mode of life. After an unfavorable court decision in 2004 the remaining, politically active, faction formed the Association of Founders of TFP to continue the original expression of their religious and social ideals and to contest the court case. Since this split, the Association of Founders has received substantial financial support from the American TFP.

Chile

In 1967 a group of conservative Catholics who published the magazine Fiducia, decided to form a Chilean chapter of the TFP. During the late 60s the TFP circulated a book claiming the Prime Minister, Eduardo Frei Montalva, was the Chilean Kerensky. The book was written in Portuguese by Fabio Vidigal Xavier da Silveira, a director of the Brazilian TFP, translated into Spanish by the Argentine affiliate of the TFP, and distributed in Chile and throughout South America. Vidigal argued that the Christian Democratic party was a tool of the communist plan to socialize Latin America. His book was repeatedly confiscated and the TFP was banned by Frei's Christian Democratic government. They opposed the government of Salvador Allende and welcomed the 1973 military coup that overthrew his Popular Unity government.

In 1976, during the Pinochet dictatorship, the TFP published a book maintaining that Catholics are duty bound to resist pastors and clergy who support the hierarchy, especially the defender of human rights Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez, who they said was leading the country toward Communism. The Chilean TFP can be seen as advocating violence against the "enemies of the truth", especially those who were seen as tolerating the infiltration of communism. By March the Chilean Bishops' Conference responded with a formal rebuke of the TFP, maintaining that the bishops have the sole governing responsibility in the Church and that those who participated in this campaign have "by their actions placed themselves outside the Catholic Church". Nonetheless, the TFP continued to have strong influence among the conservative political, military, and economic leadership of Chile, many of whom were present at a 1992 anniversary celebration of the founding of TFP.

France

The Société française pour la défense de la Tradition, Famille, Propriété grew out of an office established in 1974 by four Latin American members of TFP to disseminate information regarding TFP in Europe. French associates established the Jeunes Français pour une Civilisation Chrétienne in 1975, which took its present name in January 1977. Its statutes set the goals of defending the fundamental principles of Christian Civilization and opposing the principles of liberal and egalitarian revolution and the communism and socialism which that revolution engendered. With its foundation it established a school, l’École Saint-Benoït, which was closed after two years amid accusations that it was being used as a center of indoctrination and recruitment.

The society was described as one of the most active of the pseudo-Catholic organizations by The French Assembly's Commission of inquiry into sects. The Commission defined as pseudo-Catholic those organizations that appeal to the Catholic tradition which they maintain against the reforms imposed by Rome. TFP was also seen to exemplify a mastery of commercial fund-raising techniques, with a network of closely related organizations targeting messages to susceptible recipients.

South Africa

The Young South Africans for a Christian Civilisation (TFP) was founded in 1984, during the declining years of the apartheid regime, to resist "the liberal, socialist and communist trends of the times" and to provide theological support for the idea of a natural inequality in society. Early targets of TFP's expansion into South Africa were the Catholic, Portuguese speaking, refugees from newly independent Mozambique. One of its activities was to oppose the newspaper, New Nation, which had been funded by the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, advanced liberation theology, and opposed apartheid but which TFP saw as "communist inspired". TFP sought to undermine the bishops' popular support and appealed, unsuccessfully, to the Pope that he ban the paper. TFP's efforts were more successful in providing justification for the government's three-month suspension of the newspaper in 1987. The State President and an unnamed government minister wrote the TFP commending them for supporting the goals of the National Party government. The South African bishops issued a strongly worded rebuttal of the accusation that the New Nation was a "communist" newspaper and noted that TFP's critiques ignored the gospel basis of liberation theology.

TFP maintains that they supported the Catholic Bishops' 1952 statement in opposition to Apartheid. They also oppose the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism, but more so the radically liberal and socialist egalitarianism found in Communism which the Catholic Church defines as "intrinsically evil". TFP favors natural and harmonious inequalities in an organic society.

United States

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property was founded in the United States in 1973, stemming from a group who in 1971 had founded a magazine, Crusade for a Christian Civilization. This drew from earlier encounters of members of the Brazilian TFP with followers of the American New Right. The American TFP is staffed by 75 full-time volunteers and 60 paid employees, and its national headquarters is in Spring Grove, Penn., with branch offices in McLean, Va., Chicago, Ill., Rossville, Kan., Lafayette, La., and Orange County, Calif.

The American TFP is active on many social, cultural, and economic issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, homosexuality in the military, socialism, death penalty, sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, Islam, and many others. It promotes its ideas through newspaper advertisements, direct mail, leafleting, public meetings, online protests and activism, and 'caravans', groups of volunteers that travel across the country for weeks at a time to promote TFP's ideas on city streets and at universities.

Some of its larger campaigns include America Needs Fatima, one of the largest promoters of the message of Our Lady of Fatima, TFP Student Action, its university student outreach, and the Public Square Rosary Crusade, which organizes annual rosary rallies every year. Approximately 5,900 public rosary rallies were held in all 50 states on October 16, 2010, and 14,108 on October 10, 2015.