Plinio Corrêa de OliveiraDeceased

Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira was born in São Paulo on 13 December 1908 and died there on 3 October 1995. Educated by the Jesuits, he graduated in law from the University of São Paulo and in 1928 joined the Marian Congregations, then Brazil's largest Catholic movement, soon rising to national leadership (Wikipedia).

Politics and Catholic press. At 24 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of 1933 as a candidate of the Catholic Electoral League; a biography published by his followers states that he received more votes than any other deputy in Brazil (pliniocorreadeoliveira.info). From 1935 to 1947 he directed the Catholic weekly Legionário, which Wikipedia says gained prominence for its opposition to Nazism. He was the first president of the São Paulo archdiocesan board of Catholic Action, a post he lost in 1944 after publishing In Defense of Catholic Action, and he later taught modern and contemporary history at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (Wikipedia).

TFP. His treatise Revolution and Counter-Revolution (1959) became the founding text of the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), which he founded in 1960 and whose national council he chaired until his death; it inspired autonomous TFPs and bureaus in other countries (Wikipedia; TFP). The Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute describes the TFPs as dedicated "a combater o processo revolucionário que investe contra a Civilização Cristã" ("to combating the revolutionary process that assails Christian Civilisation") (IPCO).

Controversy. In April 1985 the Brazilian bishops' conference issued a note criticising the TFP, including for what it described as a personality cult around its founder, and urged Catholics not to join it; the TFP rejected the note as unfounded (TFP; timeline).

Legacy. After his death the movement split; the Heralds of the Gospel and the Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Institute are among its successor bodies (ResearchGate). The Italian historian Roberto de Mattei wrote his biography, The Crusader of the 20th Century, with a preface by Cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler (pliniocorreadeoliveira.info).