Quo vadis, Domine? Reverent and Filial Message to His Holiness Pope Francis from Prince Bertrand of Orleans-Braganza

Activists from movements that obstinately and violently subvert private property in Brazil are invited to hold meetings with important organizations of the Holy See; one of them is received by the Pontiff. In face of these developments, Prince Bertrand has written this Reverent and Filial Message to His Holiness Pope Francis.


I address Your Holiness in my twofold capacity as Prince of the Imperial House of Brazil and an active participant in the public life of my country to express a serious concern about the Catholic cause in Brazil and in South America in general.

Brazilians are largely aware that it was thanks to the entreaties of Pope Leo XIII, and in spite of the serious political drawbacks that such a decision would entail, that my great grandmother, Princess Isabel, Regent of the Empire, signed the Golden Law, on May 13, 1888, definitively abolishing slavery in Brazil. That action cost her the throne, but earned her the title of “the Redemptrix” in Brazilian history; and for it she received a Golden Rose from the Pope as a reward for her selflessness  in favor of social harmony and the rights of the underprivileged.


Moved by the same sense of justice and dedication to the common good as my ancestors, I am honored to have founded and assisted for these last ten years the Peace in the Countryside campaign,^[1] promoting social harmony in Brazilian agriculture. This task is all the more necessary since the country’s rural areas have been thrown into convulsion over the last few decades by a series of land invasions, attacks, destruction of crops, confiscatory expropriations, outlandish environmental requirements, and legal insecurity.


At the core of this agrarian agitation—which is the main obstacle to the full development of Brazilian agriculture and cattle ranching, responsible for 37% of Brazil’s jobs^[2] and about half of all new jobs  in the first semester of 2013^[3]—are found the Landless Workers Movement, better known by its  Portuguese acronym, MST, and the international organization, La Via Campesina.


 To read the complete statement, click on the link below.


Quo vadis, Domine? Reverent and Filial Message to His Holiness Pope Francis from Prince Bertrand of Orleans-Braganza