Brazil’s Church-State Relationship Still Frosty After Govt. Minister’s Outreach to Bishops

Crux ^ | 3/7/20 | Eduardo Campos Lima

[marshmallow]

SÃO PAULO, Brazil —A recent visit of a member of President Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet to the headquarters of the National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) may not be enough to heal the sometimes turbulent relationship between the conservative government and the Catholic Church in the South American country, according to leading experts.

On Feb. 19, Damares Alves – the Minister of Women, Family, and Human Rights – met in the capital Brasilia with two of the bishops’ conference’s vice-presidents, Archbishop Jaime Spengler of Porto Alegre and Bishop Mário Antônio da Silva of Roraima, and the secretary-general of the CNBB, Auxiliary Bishop Joel Portella Amado of Rio de Janeiro.

The discussions centered on governmental programs for women, children, and young people. Alves, who is an Evangelical pastor, was the first member of the government to hold a work meeting with the Catholic Church, over a year since the rightwing populist Jair Bolsonaro – who cites Donald Trump as in influence – took office.

The government and Church have clashed on several issues, including gun laws, the environment, the destruction of rainforest to expand agriculture and the protection of indigenous rights.

The relationship became especially fraught in light of last October’s Vatican Synod on the Amazon region, most of which is located within Brazil. Several government officials expressed concerns that the meeting could impugn the country’s sovereignty.

In 2019, Bolsonaro and members of his cabinet acknowledged that the government had been “monitoring” the preparatory works for the synod.