Evil exists... therefore the Bagarre is coming!

by Alfonso

Let's not forget that when I question TFP's concept of "Bagarre", I am not questioning God's ability to punish nations. As some point out, history seems to be full of examples of nations that have been punished by God in various ways. Certainly any war brings a country countless suffering, and this could very well be interpreted as a punishment for various sins.

But the concept of "Bagarre" as believed within the TFP went beyond "punishment of nations". This concept (by the way, central to our belief system and never made official by any written compendium or study) included the following elements:

1. God's punishment...

2. The destruction of the power of the Revolution...

3. A resulting mass conversion of survivors...

4. That would bring about the Reign of Mary.

It was also central to our belief system that this would happen in our lifetime (as a matter of fact during PCO's lifetime).

This was not the Bagarre!

Some defenders of TFP's view of the world point out that it is perfectly valid, or "theologically sound", to speculate about point 1 above. I don't disagree with them. 

But one thing is the freedom to contemplate or study hypotheses, another very different thing is to convert this hypothesis in a central tenant of our belief system, very much to the exclusion of others.

The one thing I disagree with these people that still believe in the TFP-centered interpretation of history is that they seem to indicate that if one sees as bad and sinful the list of horrors that happen in today's world, then one is left with no choice but to admit that a chastisement is near. Otherwise, as they put it, "then one will probably assess that God is very happy with us and will allow this going on endlessly like that."

This flawed logic was very prevalent in the TFP. Evil exists... therefore you either believe our interpretation of those facts, or you must be evil yourself.

I believe we are perfectly fine to have a different view on how God intervenes in history, even in the face of outrageous acts by mankind, the beings he created with free will.

Recently a read a book about Italy in the nearly 400 years that elapsed between the collapse of the Roman Empire to the invading barbarians and the crowning of Charlemagne as the new Holy Roman Emperor, which, by many, is considered the "official" beginning of the Middle Ages, if such things can be measured like that. The horrors of those days, where human life was worthless, when monks and priest were killed buy succeeding waves of barbarians of various types, were law and order disintegrated for generations! 

There is one particular part of the book (if anyone is interested, is called Barbarians, Marauders and Infidels) that tells of a monk, working on a monastery, copying some book. He hears the barbarians tearing down the gates. Knowing his death was imminent, he starts writing in the book what is happening and about to happen. The book still exists today and includes blood of the martyred monk. As I read that, I could not help but think of God's sense of irony. It's very likely that a descendant of that monk-killing barbarian later was a Crusader, or even a saint!

But I'm sure that if we had lived at the time with the same mindset that was prevalent in the TFP, we could not conclude other than God had to intervene NOW, to punish evildoers and do something to usher better days. Think about it.

And God did intervene! But it took the Church between 400 and 500 years to plant and nurture the seeds of a new Christian Civilization, so strong that even to this day some of it's "dying embers" (as we used to say) still glow.

When looking at our sad times, instead of learning from God's "track record" when it comes to His relationship with History, Plinio Correa de Oliveira and the TFP took a much bolder, faster and "cleaner" way of solving the problem: Massive chastisement of global proportions that would destroy in one sweep the power the Revolution built over 500 years, and prod humans to conversion in a massive scale to guarantee a new era.

I see no precedent for this in History. Remember I said "global".

Pardon me if, years later, looking back at how we hypothesized and conducted our lives in expectation of this awaited "Bagarre", much of our behavior looks "cartoon-like".

Do I believe our world, generally speaking, has turned away from God and that society in general does not live in Faith? Yes! Do I believe that God's answer to that is the "Bagarre" and it's aftermath as beleived internally in the TFP since the mid 60's? No!