Brazil’s presidential election campaign took a bizarre turn last week, with controversy over the official status of the country’s patron saint – Our Lady Aparecida – winding up in court.
Incumbent president Lula da Silva’s supporters began by accusing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, son of jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro, of plotting to demote Our Lady of Aparecida from her legal status as Brazil’s patron saint.
Bolsonaro’s campaign reacted immediately to say there was no such plan, and that Lula had spread fake news with the help of the Catholic Church.
The controversy resonated strongly in what is still the largest Catholic country in the world in demographic terms, even as the number of Evangelicals in the country has increased greatly over the past decades.
According to the 2022 census, 56.7% of Brazilians identify as Catholic, with Evangelicals at 26.9. That represents a drop from 65.1% of self-identified Catholics in 2010, while self-identified Evangelicals rose from 21.6%.
Politically, Catholic and Evangelical voting intentions form almost a mirror image, with 50% of Catholics and 26% of Evangelicals saying they would vote for Lula,
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