An independent group of Brazilian priests has urged its members to run for office in forthcoming local elections despite threats of suspension by the country's bishops.

Fr Alirio Bervian, vice-president of the 1,400-member National Association of Brazilian Priests, which is independent of the country's bishops' conference, said that priests willing to run for office should not ask permission beforehand from their bishops. Fr Alirio Bervian is to help train priests willing to be candidates.

Fr Bervian said that he does not know yet how many priests are willing to run for office in the nationwide October elections, but at a mid-May meeting sponsored by the association, around 20 priests interested in being elected issued a manifesto defending clerics who sought to enter politics.

The statement said that they aim to combat the corruption, nepotism and favouritism rampant in electoral politics, and help people "elect priests already known as good pastors of Christian communities". It rejected the argument that priests running for office would divide Catholic communities, saying that the communities are already divided.

"At the eucharistic table there are people united with the oppressed alongside people who daily work in the institutions of oppression," it said.

"To suspend from priestly ministry priests running for office but to tolerate professional politicians who use church communities to seduce the people is contradictory," it said.

Several bishops, including Archbishop Geraldo Lyrio Rocha of Mariana, president of the bishops' conference, have said that they would suspend any priest who decides to campaign for office for the length of the campaign, and suspend any priest who wins public office for the length of his term.

Under universal church law, priests cannot run for public office or hold positions involving the exercise of civil power without permission from their bishop or religious superior. Such permission is rarely given. A priest who disobeys faces suspension from active ministry.

Currently there are 10 mayors in Brazil who are priests. Several others are city councillors, some of whom say they can continue to celebrate Mass and perform other sacraments.