Why Catholics vote more for Lula, evangelicals for Bolsonaro, and how a controversy over the Virgin of Aparecida is influencing Brazil's elections

Image source, AFP via Getty ImagesImage caption, The image and symbolism of the Virgin of Aparecida has dominated the debate in the final stretch of Brazil's election campaign. By, Author's title, BBC News MundoPublished 10 minutes agoReading time: 7 minForget the economy, security or corruption: the hottest topic in the final stretch of the campaign for Brazil's elections next Sunday is a controversy over the Virgin of Aparecida. An unfounded rumor that right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro wanted to strip that saint of the title of patroness of Brazil fueled the electoral dispute between this opposition senator and leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro, who is evangelical, denied having such intentions and accused Lula's Workers' Party (PT) of exploiting fake news for electoral purposes. "I respect all religions and also those who have no religion," said the son of Jair Bolsonaro, a former president sentenced to prison for an attempted coup after losing the 2022 elections to Lula. Evangelicals in general avoid the Catholic veneration of saints such as AparecidaLula, who is Catholic, jumped into the controversy with polls indicating he may face an uncertain runoff against Bolsonaro on October 25. "As long as I am president of the Republic, no one will mock Our Lady of Aparecida," Lula said in the Amazonian city of Belém on Monday. "We must learn to respect all religions." The controversy even involved Brazilian institutions such as the Superior Electoral Court, which blocked related publications on social media, and the Brazilian Bishops' Conference, which denied promoting false information. Skip Most read and continue readingMost readEnd of Most readSuddenly, the issue generated one of the biggest digital political reactions of the year in the country, according to a measurement by the independent institute Democracia em Xeque. The backdrop is a trend that has been observed for years in Brazil: Catholics vote more for the left represented by Lula, and evangelicals for Bolsonaro's right. So how is this explained? "Affinity" Brazil has always had a strong religious influence. But in recent decades the historical predominance of Catholics in the country (they made up more than 90% of the population in the last century) has been challenged by various evangelical churches that attracted ever more faithful. Image source, AFP via Getty ImagesImage caption, President Lula has the support of nearly half of Brazilian Catholics, according to polls. Currently, half (50%) of Brazilians over 16 years old identify as Catholic and 29% as evangelical, pollster Quaest noted at the beginning of this year for a study by the Institute of Religious Studies (Iser). Another Quaest poll showed on Monday that Lula leads Catholics' voting intentions, with 48% (five points more than in the week before the controversy over the Virgin of Aparecida), while Bolsonaro has 29% of this segment. Conversely, among evangelical voters the right-winger leads preferences, with 46%, while the president gathers 27%. The data are similar to those from other recent polls and to those projected before the 2022 elections between then-president Jair Bolsonaro and Lula. These political trends often overshadow a complex reality where Brazilian Catholics and evangelicals, far from voting as homogeneous blocks, diverge from each other due to other factors such as their social class or skin color, experts warn. But they point out that certain facts lead some to lean more to the left and others to the right. Image source, AFP via Getty ImagesImage caption, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro gathers the voting intentions of nearly half of Brazilian evangelicals. The anthropologist Regina Novaes, academic coordinator of Iser, indicates that within Catholicism in Brazil there was a sector "that promoted the issue of human rights during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), approached the left and was important for the formation of the PT." In that period, liberation theology was key, a Catholic current that preached concentrating action on the poor and social justice. Although the movement lost strength during the pontificate of John Paul II, in Brazil it formed priests who over time gained weight in the clergy. "The (Catholic) hierarchy positions itself based on the social doctrine of the Church and with that has more affinity with the left," Novaes tells BBC Mundo, although she clarifies that there are also strong conservative movements within the institution. The Brazilian Bishops' Conference indicated in June that it would avoid supporting candidates or parties in the elections, but asked for respect for the Constitution, the institutions and the result of the ballot box. And prominent members of the clergy have made recent comments that some observers considered favorable to policies promoted by Lula. "Moral agenda" When evangelicals began to emerge in Brazil, they appealed to both the right and the left to question what they considered Catholic privileges in areas such as health and education, Novaes notes. But she adds that, as they conquered spaces of power in areas such as Congress, evangelicals turned to the right with a "moral agenda" opposed to abortion, the rights of sexual minorities and other banners of the left. Image source, AFP via Getty ImagesImage caption, Evangelical churches and faithful have grown in Brazil in recent decades, and their influence in politics has also increased. The anthropologist points out that this responded to fear in the face of the whirlwind of social changes, a certain disenchantment with the inclusion plans of leftist governments and a weariness with insecurity in marginalized areas where nearby evangelical temples multiplied. Some of those churches, in turn, strengthened ties with international evangelical organizations that facilitated a greater religious and ideological convergence. Although Bolsonaro the father is Catholic, he appealed to the evangelical electorate to reach power. For example, he was baptized in 2016 in the waters of the Jordan River in Israel and claimed without evidence that the PT distributed "gay material" in schools. Later, evangelicals had influence in the Bolsonaro government, which appointed a lawyer-pastor as a Supreme Court justice. But those gestures, as well as the growing fear of an authoritarian drift caused by the president, also alienated Catholics from his ultra movement. The current Brazilian vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, is a center-right Catholic who in the past competed with Lula but in the 2022 elections joined him to defeat Bolsonaro. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, The Catholic Church has lost faithful in Brazil, but remains the country's largest religious institution. "Religion should be understood as an important dimension of Brazilian political reorganization, and not as a variable that determines the vote," points out Silvia Fernandes, a sociologist and professor at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. But she adds that in recent decades the place occupied by the different currents of Christianity in the public sphere has changed. "Catholic sectors that historically approached social issues and the defense of democracy today coexist with an evangelical sector much more present in institutional politics," Fernandes tells BBC Mundo. This became evident in the current campaign. Flávio Bolsonaro declared that, if elected, he would decree that "Brazil belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ," something that some saw as a wink to evangelicals but that worried Catholics who interpreted it as an indirect allusion to the Virgin of Aparecida as patroness of Brazil. Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, The Virgin Aparecida is a symbol that transcends Catholics and brings together people of different religions in Brazil. Catholics link the figure of that saint to a small terracotta statue rescued from the Paraíba do Sul River in two parts by the nets of some fishermen in the 18th century. According to historians, the figure corresponded to the Virgin of the Conception, patroness of Portugal. But, having been submerged in the river, the statue acquired a dark brown color, became a symbol of Brazil's racial diversity and gained popularity until Pope Pius XI proclaimed her patroness of the country in 1930. "It is not just an object of veneration by a white Catholic elite, but it brings together religious forces that see this patroness of Brazil as something that belongs to all Brazilians," explains André Chevitarese, professor at the institute of history of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. "She belongs to umbanda, to candomblé," Chevitarese tells BBC Mundo. "They are humble, working people, who are often persecuted and demonized, but who see in Our Lady of Aparecida a lifeline to cling to to say they have the right to exist." On October 12 Brazil commemorates the day of its patroness, and this year it would be less than two weeks before the eventual presidential runoff anticipated by the polls: another reason to think the controversy may continue. Download the new BBC World Service app. Choose BBC News Mundo and receive news alerts, documentaries and analysis, all in one place. Important: the new app is not available in the UK or the United States. You can also follow us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X and on our WhatsApp channel. And don't forget to subscribe here to our newsletter to receive a special selection of our best content every Friday.