A Brazilian Catholic Discovers Tradition

One of the true blessings of my line of work (so to speak) is the number of “conversion stories” I receive, in which fellow Catholics from all over the world tell me how they discovered tradition and the difference it has made for them. Sometimes these accounts are quite detailed and thought-provoking, such as the one from Brazil that I will be sharing today. Naturally, I have had to modify certain names and details to protect the author and his circle, but otherwise the account is true to the original Portuguese text.—PAK

Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,

I would like to tell you my story, if you have time to read it. I was born in April 1971, so we are almost exactly the same age. The earliest memory I have is how much I loved resting in my mother’s arms. It distressed me to be away from her, as when my grandfather took me for a ride in a neighbor’s truck. The memory of those hours of anguish I have not forgotten, even though I could not have been more than a couple of years old.

As I grew up, I also felt somehow the same way when I was taken to church—as if something was wrong, missing. Time passed, I grew up, but going to Mass was an obligation. I liked Bible stories, the lives of the saints, but that was about it; and today I see that my friends from that time period were the same way: going to church did not appeal to us, it was like a burden. It was not uncommon for me to nod off during the celebration, even during charismatic Masses that were supposed to be peppy. I was indifferent.

The years of being in school did not help with my faith. It was not uncommon for certain teachers to speak of the Church as if it were synonymous with obscurantism, gullibility, violence, and backwardness.

It was like that until 2014, when I learned about Catholic tradition through videos on the internet. I came into awareness of people who talked about the Church in a way I had never heard any priest talk about, and began to discover that what I had been taught in school was wrong. A friend lent me Tom Woods’ book How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, where I discovered that far from being dark and ignorant, the Middle Ages were a period of light, and our civilization would not exist without the Church.

The next step happened partly when a teacher of one of my children loaned me another book: Professor Roberto De Mattei’s The Second Vatican Council—An Unwritten History. Through this book I discovered that the Council, so celebrated by the Church, has little worthy celebrating; on the contrary, it was the start of the demolition of the sacred that we see until today, and that Pope Francis faithfully follows to its bitter end. The teacher also told us about the Tridentine Mass. Until then, I had heard only that “no one understood the Latin Mass” and that “the Council had improved the Mass,” and I remember thinking: “Gee, if Mass is so boring nowadays, imagine how bad it must have been before!” The sermons of priests in the 70s and 80s were not helpful at all, they were full of liberation theology, which made many Catholics leave the church (I saw it happen).
 

Well, this friend of ours invited us to become acquainted with Mass in the Ukrainian rite, since there is no Tridentine Mass in our region, so we drove to the city of N. Arriving there, I was surprised at the importance that the Eastern Catholic priests give to confession, because where I’m from, you can obtain confession only by asking for it, by making an appointment; and when you go, the priest doesn’t even listen to you, he goes quickly on to absolution. But what about the Ukrainian Mass? It was wonderful. I didn’t care that the language used was Ukrainian. I saw it, I felt it. The priest bowed to the iconostatis, blessed the altar; the Mass was centered on Christ, on the Eucharist. I didn’t find it strange at all that he “had his back to the people”; in fact, I found it quite natural. It was there, in fact, that I felt as if I were returning to my mother’s arms: I was safe, no doubt about it. I understood the liturgy on a deeper level than words; everything made sense. I had been to the edge of heaven and didn’t want to go back. When the Mass ended, I felt tears flowing, and our friend, knowing what I felt, said to me: “Here is a Catholic recognizing his Mass.”

At last, in 2016, I finally got to know the Tridentine Mass on a trip to a monastery far away. My reaction was, if I had known the Tridentine Mass in my youth, I might very well have worn the cassock and pursued the priesthood! What can I say about the Tridentine Mass? It is like going to heaven—those songs in Latin touch me deeply, and, as I said before, I feel like I am in my mother’s arms again. I wish the Holy Spirit had given me the gift of eloquence, like the great preachers, because I have tried to talk to our priests about this experience, and they just look at me as if I am mentally handicapped—even the bishop does!—and recently one of them got mad at me because I tried to introduce him to the tradition Latin liturgy, simply to make him aware of it.

What a beautiful thing the Tridentine Mass is! I saw that little church full of young people, thirsty for Christ and well aware of the doctrine they profess. Here in my town, most of the people who go to church are old people who don’t even know what it is to be Catholic anymore; they have become Protestants in their mentality and don’t even realize it. I know this, because I hear them denying parts of the creed and even the commandments. There are those who leave Mass and then go on to evangelical services, to spiritist centers, or Candomblé houses (imagine!). And if you say something to them about it? They get angry, they say that is where they feel good. And what of our priests, why do they not confront these things?

Dom N.N., the first bishop of our new diocese (broken off of an old one), had the tabernacles and crosses removed from the altars. The tabernacles were placed in side chapels, which resemble broom closets. In the church of Santa N., amazingly, the tabernacle is next to the entrance at the back of the church—that is, when people are kneeling in church, they have their backs to the tabernacle. The second bishop wanted to restore things to a better state but was opposed by those who had given money for the “renovation” of the churches; and so it has barely changed. The third and current bishop seems to have brought us straight back to the Liberation Theology of the 70s and 80s: he and his clergy talk all the time about “oppressed peoples,” the “preferential option for the poor,” “social justice.” Whatever happened to “seek first the kingdom of God”? It seems to have been hidden along with the tabernacles!
 

One Lent I overheard a young man ask a priest if he could become a Catholic, because he was an evangelical and wanted to convert. To my astonishment, the priest said: “Stay where you are, this is good for you.” In spite of the directives of the Council, telling us we should seek unity in the Catholic Church, it seems churchmen no longer want to convert anyone; they say that “all religions save the sincere.”

Thanks to the encounter with Eastern liturgy and the Tridentine Mass, I made up my mind to read only sources that predate the Council—and behold, I have found treasures. The encyclicals of the popes prior to John XXIII; the catechism of the Council of Trent; the writings of the Church Fathers; the books of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort. I have found substantial nourishment, the “words of eternal life,” and I ask myself: Why don’t priests (outside of the traditional enclaves) talk like this anymore? When I read about modernism, I come to see how it has pervaded so much. But I also see in serious Catholics a thirst for something different, something deeper and higher. People like you assure me that I am not alone in seeing the storm that is darkening the horizon, as well as the source of the light that will overcome it.

Sincerely yours,

A Brazilian Catholic

Photo of TLM in Brazil

Read more by Dr. Kwasniewski at his Substack, “Tradition & Sanity.”

Holy Week Celebrations in Brazil

One of our most faithful photopost contributors, Mr João Melo, brought to my attention this interesting video of Holy Week celebrations in his native place, the city of São João del Rei in the state of Minas Gerais. He was also kind enough to provide this translation of the Portuguese text at the beginning.

This documentary presents Holy Week in São João del-Rei, the only city in the world which preserves in full very old rituals that no longer exist in the Vatican itself, and the language of the bells which has been the same for more than 250 years: a calm and efficient interaction between the traditional culture and the contemporary culture.

There are records of the solemnities of Lent and the traditional Holy Week from the confraternities of the “Senhor dos Passos” and the Most Holy Sacrament, from Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, and various activities and cultural manifestations realized at the plaza of St Francisco by (the association) Atitude Cultural.

São João del-Rei, the Brazilian Capital of Culture in 2007, preserves a valuable legacy of colonial and eclectic architecture, beautiful baroque churches, stone bridges, squares where several various activities take place. Masters perpetuate traditional occupations, such as the forging and foundry of bells, iron fences, chandeliers, candleholders, and sacred art in goldsmithery, sculpture, stonemasonry, ceramic, lace and embroidery; a “City of Music”, in which there is a State Conservatory, two bicentennial sacred orchestras - the oldest in the Americas - and innumerable other musical groups. The Federal University of São João del Rei offers dozens of courses, and a Higher Course of Music as well.

The music used in this documentary was composed by the priest José Maria Xavier (1819-18), and taken from the CD “Ofício de Trevas”, vol. 1, interpreted by the Symphonic Orchestra of Minas Gerais, Palácio das Artes Lyrical Choir, directed by Marcelo Ramos.

This documentary is part of the project “To be noble it is to have identity”, approved by the Rouanet Bill

Account of the First Mass in Brazil in the year 1500

Pêro Vaz de Caminha, clerk of the armada of Pedro Álvares Cabral, in a letter to the King D. Manuel, left us a remarkable account of the first Mass ever offered in the land known today as Brazil. Fr. Henrique de Coimbra, who had arrived with Portuguese explorers, celebrated this Mass on April 26, 1500. Here is a translation of the main parts of the account (see here for the original in Portuguese):

“One of them saw some white rosary beads; he waved to be given them, took great delight in them, and threw them around his neck. Then he took them off and wrapped them around his arm and waved to the earth and back to the beads and the Captain’s necklace, as if saying they would give gold for it. (...)

“When we got off the barge, the Captain said that we should go straight to the Cross, which was leaning against a tree by the river, to be erected tomorrow, which is Friday, and that we should all get down on our knees and kiss it so that they would see how much we respected it. And so we did. The ten or twelve who were there waved to the Cross, and they all went right away to kiss it. They seem to me to be people of such innocence that, if a man understood them and they understood us, they would immediately be Christians, because they, it seems, have no belief, nor do they understand any belief. (...)

“While they were doing it, he and all of us went down to the Cross below the river, where it was. From there, we brought it with those religious and priests in front of us, singing, in procession-like fashion. Some of them were already there, seventy or eighty; and when they saw us coming, some came under it to help us. We crossed the river, along the beach, and put the Cross where it was to stay, which would be the work of two crossbow shots. A hundred and fifty or more came along.

“Once the Cross was erected, with the arms and motto of Your Highness were nailed to it, they set up an altar near it. There the friar Father Henry said Mass, which was sung and officiated by the aforementioned. There were fifty or sixty of them with us, all sitting on their knees, just like us.

“And when it came to the Gospel and we all stood up, with raised hands, they then stood up with us and raised their hands, and stayed like that, until it was finished; and then they sat down again like us. And when they lifted up God [the elevation of the Mass?] and we knelt down, they all stood like this, as we stood with our hands raised, and in such a quiet way, that, I certify to Your Highness, it made us very devout. They stayed like that with us until communion was over, after which those religious and priests and the Captain received communion with some of us others.

“Some of them, because the sun was intense, when we were receiving communion, got up, and others stood and stayed. One of them, a man of about fifty or fifty-five, stayed with those who stayed. This man, as we were thus gathered together, gathered those who remained, and called for others. And walking thus among them speaking, he waved his finger toward the altar and then pointed his finger toward heaven, as if to say something good to them; and we took the meaning of it.

“When the Mass was over, the priest took off his vestments and stayed at the altar, sitting on a chair. There he preached to us from the Gospel and the Apostles, whose day it is today, treating, at the end of the preaching, of this your so holy and virtuous continuance, which increased our devotion.

“Those who were at the preaching stood like us, looking at him. And he called for some to come there. Some came and some went. And when the preaching was over, as Nicolau Coelho had brought many pewter crosses with crucifixes, which he had left from his other visit, they decided that each one should wear his own around his neck. Father Henry sat down at the foot of the Cross, and there he fastened crosses on the people, one by one, tied by a thread around the neck, first making them kiss the cross.”

Many are the striking aspects to this narration. In an age like ours, when false inculturation has made such headway, and with the syncretistic scandal of the Amazon Synod still fresh in our memories, we can look to these missionaries for a lucid picture of what Christian evangelization looks like and how it works. They do not start by building hospitals, schools, or roads, digging wells, distributing food and supplies, much less trying to interfere with political and economic structures. They do not even start by preaching (it would have been difficult, in any case, until they learned enough of the local language). Nor do they start by trying to sneak a peak at what the local shaman is doing so that they can quickly find ways to adapt Christian worship to the spirit of the place.

No. They start by building a makeshift sanctuary, with cross and altar, and proceed to sing in Latin the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in the form they have received from tradition. This (of course) instantly attracts the curiosity and respect of the natives, all of whom grasped that something important was happening, and some of whom perceived at once its transcendent religious character. After the Mass, a bit of preaching takes place (the Mass itself was not burdened with that merely human element), and then the priest begins to distribute crosses to willing bystanders. There is no hemming and hawing, no concern about trampling on the rights of natives or tiptoeing around an indigenous culture. The fundamental need of every fallen human being is to encounter the Cross, to come to know the Savior Himself, and this is attended to first and foremost.

The event was depicted in a famous painting from 1860 by Victor Meirelles (1832–1903), shown at the head of this article. Another painting from around the same time, A elevação da cruz em Porto Seguro (1879) by Pedro Peres (1841–1923), complements both the above narrative and painting.

My thanks to João Silveira of Paix Liturgique for sharing the account and painting with me during our time in Mexico at the Summorum Pontificum Congress.