The liturgical books of the Poor Clares of Belorado, for sale on a second-hand portal

Now the time has come for liturgical books. Who is behind the sale is the seminarian – judging by his social networks he seems to be the only one – of the Brazilian sedevacantist bishop installed in Belorado, Rodrigo Henrique Ribeiro da Silva. In fact, Paulo Cavalcante, as he is called, also lives in the monastery and appears in several publications with a serious expression and a lost look, serving as an acolyte in the celebrations of the ‘vetus ordo’ Eucharist that the portly bishop presides over in the main chapel. of the monastery.

Cavalcante offers through the milanuncios.com portal a “very beautiful and complete set of the ‘Breviarium Romanum’ from 1957, published by the Marietti publishing house.” These are the four volumes of the breviary – the book with the prayers that priests and religious use for their daily prayers – and it is striking that it is an edition prior to the Second Vatican Council – which the nuns and all the bishops deny. that orbit them—and that includes “the new psalter of Pope Pius XII”, the last one valid for them, according to the description provided by the seminarian.

The set, in an excellent state of conservation judging by the photographs, is offered for 1,000 euros, a figure that may seem disproportionate, but well below the price to which other similar copies are sold online (and with signs of being more worn due to use). Everything seems to indicate that the money is urgently needed and that, as in previous cases, the former religious have tried – with the attempt to sell the Derio monastery or the chasubles – it is offered below its real price.

In fact, since his arrival in Spain, Cavalcante seems to be more committed to obtaining funds for the work of the sedevacantist bishop than to his priestly training. It is he who, on November 26, started a crowdfunding campaign, also on the internet, for the purchase of a property in Burgos in which to install the San José seminary “under the direction of S. Exa. Rev. Bishop Rodrigo da Silva as Rector” and that it would have, “a teaching staff made up of various priests, among them Fathers Casas Silva and Matías Chimentón.” It does not seem that he has to worry about the loneliness of being the only candidate for the priesthood in that project, because at the moment 70 euros of the 194,000 planned have been raised, 0% of the total for statistical purposes, according to the portal.

On January 5, Cavalcante also asked for donations on his social networks, in this case to continue his “path to the priesthood.” Specifically, he explains that he has the “need to acquire new study materials, books and clothing, such as the cassock, which are essential for the fulfillment of my duties at the seminary.” Expenses that “as a seminarian, I cannot bear alone,” for which the post is accompanied by two accounts, one in dollars domiciled in the United States and another in euros, from an entity based in Brussels.

Judging by the limited success of crowdfunding, the insistence on donations for support as a seminarian and now the sale of liturgical books at a below-market price, the economic situation of the new partners of the former religious sisters seems as desperate as the that the ex-clarisas generated after years of chaotic management of the monasteries.

Although the publication does not clarify whether the books belong to the monastery or not, and there are no stamps or ‘ex libris’ that reveal their origin, both the place of sale, Belorado itself, and the other books with which they appear in the photos They make us think that they belong to the monastic library. Furthermore, another detail that the seminarian reveals in the description seems to make it even clearer. As he explains, “this set includes the offices of the Order of the Conventual Friars Minor (OFM Conv.)”, that is, the specific part of the prayer of the different Franciscan orders, such as the Poor Clares, to which the monastery has belonged. for centuries.

Judging by the excellent condition, this 1957 edition must not have been used for a long time. Just five years after being published, in 1962, with the Second Vatican Council already underway, Pope John XXIII promoted a version of the breviary that, probably, relegated these books to the library. Those Poor Clares did seem to follow the dictates of the ecclesial renewal that those who claim to be their heirs now deny and, in practice, they are squandering the heritage, both material and spiritual, that the Poor Sisters of Saint Clare have accumulated for centuries in Belorado.