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Dom Antonio de
Castro Mayer, Bishop of Campos, Brazil, departed to God in his
87th year on April 25, 1991. Born in 1904, Dom Antonio was
from Campinhas in Sao Paulo. He studied theology at the Gregorian University
in Rome, where he obtained a doctorate. Before becoming a bishop, as a priest of
the Sao Paulo diocese, he successively and successfully filled the posts of
professor in the Provincial Seminary of Sao Paulo, was canon of the
cathedral, parish priest of St. Joseph of Belem in the eastern section of
Sao Paulo, and finally that of Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Sao Paulo. He
was, at the same time, General Counsellor of Catholic Action for the Archdiocese
and, in that function, he wholeheartedly supported Catholic lay organizations in
their efforts to check Communist infiltration. |
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In 1948 he was appointed and
consecrated coadjutor bishop of Campos, assuming the direction of the diocese
one year later. In the 1950's, Bishop de Castro Mayer published a lengthy and
timely "Pastoral Letter
on Problems of the Modern Apostolate," in which he attacked Modernism,
whose ravages he already had foreseen. During the 1960's, Bishop de Castro Mayer
fought against the Communists on the home front and against the Modernists in
Rome. In 1964, Brazil was barely kept from falling into the Communist bloc —this
due to devotion to Our Lady of Fatima and the regular recitation of the Rosary
by large multitudes of the people. But the Brazilian episcopate was divided on
the question of the socialist land reforms, which were the beginning of
Communism. Many of them approved this reform but Bishop de Castro Mayer, along
with Archbishop Sigaud, led the minority of bishops who opposed it, thus playing
a central role in the defeat of Communism in Brazil.
In Rome he was again associated with Archbishop Sigaud in
the formation of the Coetus lnternationalis Patrum, an organization of
traditional bishops to counter the Modernists' attempts to take over the
Council. This organization founded by Archbishop Lefebvre and presided over by
Archbishop Sigaud, amongst other things, had a petition signed by over 450
bishops asking for the condemnation of Communism. It was Bishop de Castro Mayer
who presented this petition to the Council, although to no avail.
Bishop de Castro Mayer was especially outstanding for his
refusal to accept the post-conciliar changes in the liturgy. Until his forced
retirement in 1981 the traditional Latin Mass was celebrated throughout his
diocese, along with all the other traditional Catholic practices and devotions
—and he was to continue this battle even when replaced by Bishop Navarro. The
majority of the priests in the diocese of Campos (336 of them!) resisted the
Modernist orientations of the new bishop and remained faithful. Bishop Antonio was
thus able to maintain a completely traditional "diocese" within a
diocese, with around 40,000 faithful, which he organized in parallel chapels to
protect the faithful from the enemies within.
His association with Archbishop Lefebvre strengthened
further in 1983 when they wrote a joint
Open Letter to the Pope in which
they publicly exposed the proliferation of errors within the post-conciliar
Church that all of their private efforts had until then done nothing to stop.
His understanding of the gravity of the crisis of faith in the Church was so
profound that he was to be found at Archbishop Lefebvre's side on the occasion
of the episcopal consecrations of 1988. His so crucial presence was, as he
himself explained, "to accomplish my duty: to make a public Profession
of Faith."
Soon after this historic event he
began to lose his physical strength and eventually died of respiratory failure
on April 25, 1991 (exactly one month after Archbishop Lefebvre). He was buried
on the following day, at 4:00 p.m., in a chapel crypt of Our Lady of Carmel in
Campos.
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