American Society for Tradition, Family and Property

This right-wing Catholic group is one of many Tradition, Family, Property groups (TFPs) worldwide, inspired by the work of the Brazilian Catholic intellectual, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. They are frequent sponsors of protests of books and movies they consider "anti-Catholic" and focus on organizing young people against "leftist bias" on campus.

American Society for Tradition, Family, and Property
1358 Jefferson Road
Spring Grove, Pennsylvania 17362
Website: www.tfp.org

President: Raymond E. Drake
Founded: 1973
Secretary-Treasurer: Benjamin A. Hiegert
Board of Directors: Luiz A. Fragelli; Raymond E. Drake; Robert E. Ritchie; John W. Horvat II; Charles P. Noell III; and Gary J. Isbell
Staff: 60 paid staff members and 75 full-time volunteers
Finances: $2,660,546 (2004 net assets) $4,953,327 (2004 total revenue)
Publications: Rejecting the Da Vinci Code; Defending a Higher Law: Why We Must Resist Same-Sex "Marriage" and the Homosexual Movement; Revolution and Counter-Revolution; anti-abortion papers; Crusade magazine; and LulaWatch, the electronic bi-weekly publication of the TFP Washington Bureau
Affiliate Groups: America Needs Fatima (120,000 members); Student Action

Purpose

In words of the American Society for Tradition, Family, and Property they are "a civic organization of Catholic inspiration that seeks to defend in a legal and peaceful way, the basic values of Christian Civilization, namely tradition, family and property." The American TFP bases its ideas on the principles outlined in the handbook Revolution and Counter-Revolution by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. [source]

Activites

• The American TFP holds public meetings, lectures, youth and adult seminars, and a youth summer program. They also conducts protests, boycotts, petitions, ad campaigns and letter-writing campaigns, and publishes books and articles. TFP staffs St. Louis be Montefort Academy, an all-boys Catholic boarding school, in Herndon, Pennsylvania.
• TFP Student Action's website sponsors seminars bringing college students together from across the nation to analyze, discuss pressing issues of the day. [source]
• Sponsored the "Reject the DaVinci Code" campaign to promote protests against the 2006 film and offered an organizers' handbook with downloadable posters, brochures, newspaper ads and more. They claim to have inspired more than 2000 protests in front of movie theaters across the country. [source]

Funding

The TFP is financed by a network of individual donors nationwide.

History

The organization was started in Brazil in 1960 by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, and now claims over twenty TFPs or TFP-inspired groups worldwide.

Updated: January 2007