Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: Prophet of the Reign of Mary

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In the year after the death of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira on October 3, 1995, Roberto de Mattei wrote a biography of the Brazilian Catholic leader, to which he appropriately gave the title The Crusader of the 20th Century. As a biographical work, it was followed in 2010 by a specifically historical work, destined to extend Prof. de Mattei's influence throughout the Catholic world as a prominent Catholic historian, and to provide historical perspective for the life of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. That second work, relating to the history of the Church in our time, was The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story, an account of the Council that included references to the role of Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira, who had worked during the first session of the Council assisting the bishops who formed the International Group of Fathers, the Coetus Internationalis Patrum. The present work represents the third in this series of books in which the author has described the influence and role of the man addressed by friends and collaborators as Dr. Plinio. It is therefore part of a trilogy of exhaustive research, bringing to light the crisis that the Church has confronted in modern times by emphasizing the historical roles of important figures who have led her defense. Prominent among them was the subject of the present work. Beginning in Part I with an analysis of "The Philosophical School," Prof. De Mattei shows Dr. Plinio not only as a faithful disciple of St. Thomas Aquinas, but also as one who uniquely applied St. Thomas's principles to the crisis confronting the Church in our time. Those principles are rooted in a realism that opposes the modern ideologies, in the hierarchical order of creation that constitutes its sacrality, and which is therefore the opposite of the egalitarian anti-metaphysics characterizing the Revolution against Christian Civilization. Part II of this study analyzes the spirituality that is the foundation of Dr. Corrêa de Oliveira's life and work.