Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer’s
January 1974 Letter
To Pope Paul VI
Most Holy Father,
Prostrate respectfully at the feet of Your Holiness, I ask permission to submit for your consideration the studies that follow this letter.
My sending these studies is carried out in obedience to Your Holiness’s order transmitted by letter from His Eminence Sebastiano Cardinal Baggio to His Eminence Vicente Cardinal Scherer, of which the latter informed me orally in a meeting I had with him in Rio de Janeiro last September 24.
On the 15th of October I had the honor of writing to Your Holiness, affirming my filial compliance with these orders.
Among these there was one by which, in the event that “in conscience I do not agree” with “acts of the current Ordinary Magisterium of the Church,” “I freely express to the Holy See” my opinion. This is what I do with all the reverence due to the Venerable Vicar of Jesus Christ, as I hand over to Your Holiness the three enclosed studies.
With this – as Your Holiness will see – I am performing nothing other than an act of obedience to Your venerable order. The considerations that I express in them, I have formed over years of reflection and prayer. It is not my intention to hand them over to the public, certain that my reserve will please Your Holiness.
Behold, Holy Father, obedience compels me now to communicate to Your Holiness thoughts that perhaps bring you grief. I do it, however, with peace of mind, because I am on the path of sincerity and obedience, on which I hope to remain with the grace of God.
But if my conscience is clear, at the same time my heart is sad.
In fact, my whole life as a Priest and Bishop has been marked by the commitment – in my limited scope of action – to be, by my unrestricted devotion and by my entire obedience, a source of joy for the various Popes under whose authority I have successively served.
Now, at the present juncture, devotion and obedience lead me to bring sorrow to Your Holiness.
An episode from the history of France in the last century comes to mind in this action. Chateaubriand narrates it in the “Mémoires d’Outre Tombe.” King Louis XVIII once asked him for his opinion on a measure that the monarch had just made public. Sincerity prevented the writer from praising such a measure. But the fear of saddening the King moved him to silence. He therefore avoided expressing his thoughts. Seeing this, Louis XVIII formally ordered the writer to speak with complete frankness. The latter, in response to the noble mandate, and before opening himself to his King, addressed this request: “Sire, pardonnez ma fidélité.” This is what I ask of Your Holiness: forgive me for the fidelity with which I carry out Your orders.
I implore Your Holiness to have compassion toward the obedience of this Bishop, now seventy years old, who is currently experiencing the most dramatic episode of his life. And I ask Your Holiness to grant me at least a portion of that understanding and that benevolence that you have so often manifested not only around you, but also with people who are strangers, and even enemies of the one fold of the one Shepherd.
Over the years, the conviction has taken form in my soul that Your Holiness’s official acts do not have, with those of the Pontiffs who preceded you, that consonance that with all my soul I wanted to see in them.
These are not, of course, acts guaranteed by the charism of infallibility. Therefore, that conviction of mine in no way shakes my unrestricted and profound belief in the definitions of the First Vatican Council.
Fearing to waste the valuable time of the Vicar of Christ, I dispense with further considerations and limit myself to submitting three studies to the attention of Your Holiness:
1. On “Octogesima Adveniens”
2. On Religious Liberty
3. On the new “Ordo Missae”
(The latter authored by attorney Arnaldo Vidigal Xavier da Silveira, whose content I identify with).
It will be superfluous to add that in this step, as already in others of my life, I will fulfill, in all the measure prescribed by the laws of the Church, the Sacred duty of obedience. And in this spirit, with the heart of an ardent and devoted son of the Pope and the Holy Church, I will welcome any word from Your Holiness regarding this material.
In a special way, I beseech Your Holiness to declare to me:
A. If You find any error in the doctrine exposed in the three enclosed studies;
B. If You see in the attitude assumed in these studies towards the documents of the Supreme Magisterium something that is at odds with the respect I owe them as a bishop.
Begging Your Holiness to grant me, as well as my Diocese, the precious benefit of the Apostolic Blessing, I am of
Your Holiness
Humble and obedient son.
+ Antonio de Castro Mayer
Bishop of Campos