Home > Brazil president urges world churches to support social reform
Brazil president urges world churches to support social reform
by Open-Publishing - Sunday 19 February 2006Religions-Beliefs Governments South/Latin America
by Stephen Brown
Porto Alegre, Brazil (ENI). Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has appealed to a global gathering of church leaders to support his country’s efforts to construct a more egalitarian society.
"Religious organizations have played an irreplaceable role in transforming Brazil," Lula da Silva told delegates at the World Council of Churches ninth assembly on 17 February, referring to a wide-ranging programme of social reform he introduced after being elected president in 2002.
"We call on the Council to continue working with us to continue building a more just and equitable society," Lula da Silva told representatives of the world’s major Protestant, Anglican and Christian Orthodox denominations meeting in Porto Alegre. "I want to thank the World Council of Churches for choosing Brazil for its ninth assembly and this city of Porto Alegre which is the cradle of the World Social Forum and which expresses the ideals and the diversity of contemporary civil society," said Lula da Silva, a former trade union leader who helped found the left-wing Workers’ Party in 1980.
He was referring to the global gathering against exploitative-driven globalisation that first met in the southern Brazil city in 2001, under the slogan "Another World is Possible".
Lula da Silva in his speech to the WCC gathering set out what he described as the achievements of his social reform agenda in areas such as agrarian reform, education, job creation, economic development and the "zero hunger" programme.
"These actions have greatly changed the lives of millions of Brazilians," he said, noting that in many cases it was the involvement of churches in civil society that had made it possible to promote such initiatives.
Responding to some hecklers outside the hall where he was speaking the president said, "For a country that went through 23 years of authoritarian rule, here is no more pleasant noise than the noise of people shouting. Whether they are in favour or against is not important. What is important is that they are shouting."
Presidential elections are scheduled later this year and although Lula da Silva has not said if he will stand again, he is widely expected to seek re-election.
The Brazilian president in his speech also said his country was committed to freedom and tolerance for religions. Although most Brazilians belong to the Roman Catholic Church, fast-growing evangelical and Pentecostal groups are making inroads into that traditional allegiance.
A new civil code would "guarantee to all religions and especially to the many evangelical denominations the legal support they need for their operations", said Lula da Silva.
Lula da Silva also praised the WCC for the role it played while Brazil was under military rule from the 1960s to the 1980s. "When we were fighting for democracy we found in the World Council of Churches not only moral and spiritual support but active solidarity," he said. "Those were years of hard struggle in defence of freedom and human dignity."
He paid tribute to the WCC in particular for having "rescued" Paulo Freire, a lay Catholic educator who was imprisoned under Brazil’s regime which denounced his methods as communist inspired. He served as a consultant for the Geneva-based WCC from 1970 to 1980 promoting literacy programmes in Latin America and Portuguese-speaking Africa among other places.