Many doubts hovered among Brazilian Catholics about who would be the leaders of their episcopal conference at a time when the country is ruled by the right-wing government of President Jair Bolsonaro. About a month ago, Catholic bishops gathered in their annual assembly at the Sanctuary of Aparecida and elected new moderate leaders who are quite in line with Pope Francis's vision of the Church.
In last year’s presidential election, Catholics were divided almost halfway between Bolsonaro and his centre-left rival, Fernando Haddad, an ally of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently in prison for corruption.
The National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB) is historically recognised as a conservative institution in customs – against abortion, same-sex marriage and the so-called "gender ideology", for example – but at the same time it is strongly linked to social movements such as those who offer pastoral care for prisoners, indigenous peoples, migrants, peasants and the homeless.
For this second level of action, president Bolsonaro says the CNBB is “the rotten part of the Catholic Church”, as in practice it has come closer to the political left-wing than to the right-wing.
In the same sense, a new conservative wave among Catholics – many of them very young – has posed a dilemma for Catholic bishops over the past five years. Blogs, YouTube channels and social media profiles accuse the CNBB of being an instrument of Liberation Theology and other “communist” ideologies that spoils the true Catholic faith. They also question the destination of bishops’ charity funds.
Those are just a few challenges that the new CNBB leadership will face. The new president is Archbishop Walmor de Oliveira de Azevedo, a 65-year-old pastor of the urban archdiocese of Belo Horizonte who defines himself as “a man of dialogue”.
He is known as a moderate leader who avoids radical solutions. Archbishop Azevedo has also shown many signs of closeness to the poor and the suffering. He gained national visibility, beyond the Church’s circles, after the Brumadinho dam disaster of 25 January this year.
A dam belonging to Vale mining company collapsed there, releasing a wave of mud which killed at least 237 people and destroyed the entire village. As Brumadinho is within the limits of Azevedo’s archdiocese, he and his auxiliary bishop Vicente Ferreira were a strong source of support for the people.
“Our gaze must remain focused on the poorest, strengthening our actions in the exercise of charity, love, the pursuit of justice, which are indispensable for the construction of peace”, he said after his election to CNBB, on 10 May. Both his vice-presidents, Archbishop Jaime Spengler (Porto Alegre) and Bishop Mário Antônio da Silva (Manaus) have a similar style.
Archbishop Azevedo also commented the relationship between bishops and government: “We will hope that everyone complies with their roles” and “We have an essential contribution: the Gospel”.
Special attention shall be given, too, to the new secretary-general of CNBB. It is common to hear in Brazil that “the secretary has more power than the president” at the conference. That is because he offers full-time dedication to the office and he is in charge of writing documents and managing the institution.
Bishop Joel Portella, auxiliary of Rio de Janeiro, was elected for the current 4-year term. He succeeds Bishop Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, who had a strong social justice agenda and, for conservatives, was too much of a “leftist”.
At the press conference, Bishop Portello said: “We will not tire of dialogue and seek peace in a world that is very fragmented by exaggerations and fundamentalisms.”