Catholic New World staff writer Michelle Martin talks with C. Preston Noell III.

C Preston Noell III, 46, has devoted his adult life to a Catholic-based cultural organization dedicated to what they call the core values of Christian civilization: Tradition, Family and Property. The organization, which started in Brazil in 1960 and came to the United States in 1974, makes its voice heard through street protests, postcard and e-mail campaigns and a sister lobbying organization in Washington. It counts about 100 full-time volunteers and several thousand donors. Noel, who was raised in St. Louis, works as Chicago coordinator and as a lobbyist and publication editor in Washington.

The Catholic New World: What is TFP?

C. Preston Noell III: We are a civic and cultural organization of Catholic inspiration that works in the temporal sphere to defend the perennial values of Christian civilization and to act in favor of tradition, family and private property. We carry out that work by means of the publication of books, holding conferences and seminars, courses of study, public campaigns. We do some lobbying as well to advance pro-family legislation in Washington and elsewhere. … I think it’s important to keep the pressure on, not to back down when the forces of the culture of death continue to assault the church and Christian civilization. We try to respond to it the best way we can, and we do that using strictly legal and peaceful means, and I think we’ve been pretty successful with that.

We’re in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest petition drive in history, for the freedom and independence of Lithuania from the Soviet Union back in 1990. It was a campaign not just of the American TFP but of the family of TFPs at that time in 25 countries, with 5.2 million verifiable signatures, collected one by one in the streets. It was an awesome campaign. We did it out of love for Christian civilization, and Lithuania is known as the land of Mary.

TCNW: You joined Tradition, Family, Property after your second year of college and have been with TFP ever since. Did you finish your education?

CPN: To be very honest, I took a non-traditional career path. Basically, in 1976, that was a time shortly after Roe v. Wade and I’d always been concerned about the way things were going in society, and I guess I received a grace. I decided to go to a TFP school of studies they had in Cleveland at the time for six months. At the end of that, I decided I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I continued, and I’ve been in the TFP all that time.

In terms of finishing education, I don’t think education is ever finished. We’re an educational institution in ourselves. We continue studying all sorts of things. Through my life in TFP, I have come to speak tolerably well four languages, due to travels. I would say my life in the TFP has been the most enriching educational experience I have ever had.

TCNW: Why is TFP necessary?

CPN: I’ll answer paraphrasing (Arlington, Va.) Bishop (Paul S.) Loverde, who just wrote us in the last few days about this book, “I Have Weathered Other Storms.” He said this is the kind of response that the Catholic laity need to provide. We see our role as a complementary kind of a role, as one of many different organizations who are doing a lot of very good work. For example, in these campaigns against the various attacks on the church in movies, we’re not the only ones. The Catholic League is also very involved in that. But in terms of organizing protests at theaters, I think we’re probably the best in the country at opposing blasphemy like that. We have a whole section of our America Needs Fatima campaign dedicated to fighting blasphemies. It’s fantastic work. It’s something special when someone goes to see a movie like “Dogma,” and they listen and read what we hand out, and they don’t go in to see it. It’s great!

TCNW: What was it about TFP that attracted you when you were, what, 20 years old?

CPN: The idea of a crusade. A moral crusade—that’s what it was. Back in those days, TFP was pretty small here—16 members or something like that in the United States. Youth is made for heroism, and I saw it as a calling, and I threw myself into it. I never regretted it. It’s magnificent work, and I love it. In this case, in this book, there are people inside and outside the church who are attacking the church over sexual abuse scandals, and some of the media—quite a number of the media, I would say—are guilty of shoddy journalism and shoddy theology in particular, and the attacks have taken on a flavor very different from taking on sexual abuse. The terrible sexual abuse things need to be denounced and fought against, but there are people with an agenda who want to piggyback on that and subvert the church teaching in matters of celibacy for priests. …

The church is a full and perfect monarchy as shown clearly in the book. They want to transform the church into some kind of democracy. The church is not a democracy. Our Lord is king, Christ the king, and at this moment, to see those types of attacks waged against the church imposes on us a responsibility to come to the defense of the church with the longstanding teaching and doctrine of the church.

What do you do as Chicago coordinator?

We have centers in different places in the country. When the Chicago Reader published that blasphemous cartoon, someone sent me a copy of that. I checked with our America Needs Fatima campaign staff back in Pennsylvania about putting on a protest. Of course, to put on a protest is easy enough, but the kind of protest we wanted to do required major organization and when I faxed through the copy of this cartoon, people were getting really disgusted just looking at this. I put together a one-paragraph description of what it was about, and when our American Needs Fatima director read it, he said it had real potential for a national campaign. On that basis, we started organizing a national campaign with postcards, an e-mail protest, phone calls and everything else, and we started to organize a major demonstration. Need I tell you that process for doing that in Chicago is incredibly complicated. … We needed the permission of the alderman; without that, it wouldn’t happen. We needed the permission of the police chief for the district—had to sit down in meetings with all of them. We’ve done this in many other places, and that probably helped obtain the permit. Then we had to put down a $1 million bond. There’s a series of obstacles that people don’t imagine when they’re putting together a rally of reparation like that. Then we started inviting all our friends. Cardinal George was unable to attend, but he did send a letter.

Also, I’m involved with all the life groups here in Chicago. I’m part of the organizing committee for Speak Out Illinois, which is the premier pro-life event in Chicago each year.

When something comes up like this blasphemous movie, “The Crime of Father Amarro,” we started a national campaign against that,—basically, it’s an attack on the Catholic Church, on the priesthood, on bishops—and we started protests. We protested here in Chicago in front of the Loews Cineplex in 900 N. Michigan Ave. Fifteen people when it was freezing cold outside. The movie’s been an incredible flop here. Last time I checked, it had grossed $4.2 million, which is an incredible flop in the U.S. We do know that when movies like this are protested, the movie theater owners hate it.

When we protested on North Michigan Avenue, it was two days after Thanksgiving, and there were hundreds of people coming down the sidewalk. Some fellow jumped out and started screaming at us and attacking the bishops and the Catholic Church, and then started saying we’re against the First Amendment. For heaven’s sake, we are out there exercising our First Amendment rights as Catholics, freely and peacefully, loudly voicing our disagreements, protesting vigorously, and somebody popped over and started taking his photograph, and he ran off. It’s interesting that when he did that, more people started taking our postcards. … We don’t shy away from the controversy. In our case, it helps us. In the case of the movie theater owners, it doesn’t. We know that once the moral choice issue is placed in front of people, it creates serious problems for people who produce immoral movies.

Do you see your role as being the people who are willing to stir the pot and take the heat?

In that kind of a case, absolutely. We’re in the forefront. We see it incumbent upon as Catholics, as members of the church militant, to defend the church when the church is attacked like that; to defend the honor of our lady and to defend the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ. It brings sacrifices, no doubt, but ultimately we’re doing it for our God and for our lady and the church. Our Lord was controversial too; he didn’t shy away from controversy.

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