RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – A viral claim that presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro intends to remove Our Lady of Aparecida as Brazil’s patron saint has become a major religious issue in the final days before Sunday’s presidential election, despite the absence of evidence that the candidate has proposed such a measure.
The controversy began after an August campaign video in which Bolsonaro said that, if elected president, one of his first acts would be to declare that Brazil belongs to “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Posts circulating online subsequently interpreted the statement as an indication that he would seek to remove Our Lady of Aparecida as the country’s patron saint. Bolsonaro has denied that interpretation and said he was referring to a symbolic religious act rather than a change to the saint’s status.
The viral claim and what the record shows
The social-media narrative became intertwined with a real but nearly two-decade-old congressional proposal.
Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies records show that then-lawmaker Professor Victório Galli introduced PL 2,623/2007 in December 2007. The bill proposed changing the wording of the law governing the Oct. 12 national holiday so that Our Lady of Aparecida would be described as the patron saint of “Brazilian Roman Catholic apostolics,” rather than simply the patron saint of Brazil.
The Chamber says the proposal was rejected in the committee that considered its merits and formally archived on Aug. 22, 2008. It is therefore not a pending congressional proposal from the current presidential campaign.
Current Brazilian fact-checking has found no evidence that Flávio Bolsonaro made a proposal to remove the saint’s title. The viral posts connected his August remarks with the old Galli legislation, despite the proposal having been introduced by Galli nearly 20 years earlier.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly rejected the allegation, calling it false and saying there is no such current project. His campaign has also sought intervention from Brazil’s electoral authorities over posts carrying the claim.
The dispute reaches Brazil’s courts
The controversy has moved beyond campaign speeches and social media.
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Justice André Mendonça of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court ordered the removal of publications alleging that Bolsonaro would strip Our Lady of Aparecida of her status. The decision described the material as false and came as the election approached.
Justice Flávio Dino later overturned part of Mendonça’s action, arguing that the circumstances did not provide sufficient certainty of illegality to justify such a severe restriction on expression. Another ruling subsequently restored Mendonça’s removal order for much of the disputed material.
The judicial dispute illustrates a separate issue from the underlying religious claim: Brazilian authorities have been weighing the treatment of political misinformation against protections for political expression during an active election campaign. The courts’ differing rulings do not establish that Bolsonaro proposed removing the saint’s title.
Bolsonaro and the Catholic Church trade accusations
The controversy has also produced a confrontation between Bolsonaro and the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, known as the CNBB.
Bolsonaro accused the Catholic bishops’ conference of helping spread the allegation. The CNBB denied producing or participating in the dissemination of false information concerning the election and rejected the accusation against the organization.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro’s principal rival in the election, has also addressed the controversy publicly, defending the continued status of Our Lady of Aparecida while the claim circulated online.
Lula’s campaign subsequently incorporated the religious issue into its election messaging, including an event where a song honoring Our Lady of Aparecida was played.
Why the issue has become politically sensitive
Religion carries substantial political weight in Brazil. The country’s 2022 census counted about 100.2 million people identifying as Roman Catholic and 47.4 million identifying as Evangelical among the population covered by the religion survey.
That religious landscape provides the broader context for the controversy, but it does not establish how individual voters will respond to the dispute.
The political significance of the episode has instead been reflected in its rapid spread across social media and its appearance in the campaigns of the leading candidates. A social-media analysis cited by CNN Brasil found that discussion surrounding the controversy included criticism of the alleged misinformation, concern about religious influence and debate over the court’s intervention.
Other polling and monitoring organizations have reported changes in online political discussion around the controversy, but such measurements should not be treated as proof that the issue will determine the election result.
An old proposal at the center of a new campaign fight
The underlying 2007 legislation remains an important part of the story because it demonstrates that a proposal concerning the saint’s legal designation did exist.
The Chamber’s own record, however, identifies Galli as the author and states that the proposal is archived. The record does not identify Flávio Bolsonaro as its author or establish that he has revived it during the 2026 presidential campaign.
That distinction has become central to the dispute. A historical legislative proposal, a candidate’s separate religious statement and a viral allegation about a future government policy are three different claims.
As Brazil enters the final stretch before the Oct. 4 vote, the controversy has nevertheless placed Our Lady of Aparecida at the center of a political dispute involving candidates, religious institutions, social-media users and the country’s electoral courts. What remains established is that the old congressional proposal exists in the historical record and is archived; what has not been established is that Flávio Bolsonaro has a current plan to remove the saint’s title.
Reporting Credit: Brazilian Chamber of Deputies legislative records and congressional archives; Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), 2022 Census religion data.
