A discredited social media and press campaign accusing conservative Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro of plotting to strip Our Lady of Aparecida of her title as patron saint of Brazil has vaulted into the center of the country’s 2026 presidential race, drawing in the Supreme Court and prompting the candidate to compare the episode to the 2018 stabbing of his father.
The claim — that Bolsonaro, an Evangelical Christian, intended to formally abolish the Catholic patroness designation if elected in October — spread rapidly across social and mainstream media in recent days, according to CNN Brasil. The network reported that the campaign relied in part on remarks Bolsonaro made at an August event, where he promised supporters he would decree that Brazil “belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ” if he won the election.
A Century-Old Devotion at the Center of a Campaign
Our Lady of Aparecida, venerated in Brazil for more than 300 years, has held the status of national patroness since the late Pope Pius X formally declared it so in 1930. Brazil remains an overwhelmingly Christian nation of more than 213 million people, with roughly 56 percent identifying as Catholic and about 27 percent as Evangelical. The demographic balance has shifted gradually over the past decade, with Catholic numbers slipping and Evangelical ranks growing modestly.
Bolsonaro rejected the patroness claim in a video posted on social media last week, calling it false and blaming the ruling Workers’ Party (PT) of incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for manufacturing it.
“There’s no such plan. So here we go, right to the end, the PT only knows how to do one thing: lie. It came to power through lies, but we’re going to oust it with the truth,” Bolsonaro said, according to an account of the video.
The senator said he respects all religions “and also those who have no religion, unlike Lula, who wants to meddle even in the rules of the Catholic Church.” His remark appeared aimed at recent comments by Lula to Catholic leaders in which the president said the Church was growing more slowly than Evangelical congregations because it “has not abolished celibacy.”
Accusations Against Globonews and an On-Air Retraction
In a separate post, Bolsonaro publicly accused the outlet Globonews of acting as the “central hub” for the misinformation, and hours later published a clip of the network broadcasting an official retraction. During that broadcast, an anchor clarified that no such proposal involving the senator existed in the current Congress — rather, a project of that nature had been introduced in 2007 and subsequently archived.
Bolsonaro warned his followers to stay alert, saying the “PT mafia will spread several lies throughout all the days until the elections.”
He returned to the subject during an appearance on a Catholic podcast called SantoFlow. On the program, he described learning about the viral claim while playing soccer in Minas Gerais — the same state where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, was stabbed during the 2018 campaign in Juiz de Fora.
“I am convinced that they tried to kill my father because they saw that he was already the President of Brazil in 2018. That’s why they went after him to try to eliminate him. It was that stabbing, back in Juiz de Fora,” Bolsonaro said, according to the podcast. “Just to give you an idea, once again. I think I can consider this fake news about me a kind of stab against me.”
He recalled his reaction when he first heard the rumor: “I said, ‘What’s going on, man? Check out this nonsense, it doesn’t make any sense.’ How is that even possible? How did this spread so fast?”
The senator said he is a frequent target of false stories but draws strength from his faith to keep campaigning.
Supreme Court Whiplash Over Takedown Orders
The dispute has also produced a series of sharply conflicting rulings at Brazil’s Supreme Court, an institution the report describes as still recovering from a recent internal rupture among its justices, several of whom sit concurrently on the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the country’s top electoral authority.
The judiciary became involved after the Bolsonaro campaign filed a formal complaint over the false claim, arguing it amounted to hate speech and a criminal accusation. According to the state-run Agência Brasil, Justice André Mendonça ordered the immediate removal from the internet of all content tied to the claim that Bolsonaro sought to remove Our Lady of Aparecida as patroness.
On Sunday, Justice Flávio Dino — who previously served as Lula’s justice minister — suspended Mendonça’s ruling after comedian Antonio Tabet requested it, arguing that the removal infringed on his free speech rights. On Tuesday, Justice Luiz Fux overturned Dino’s decision in response to a fresh request from the Bolsonaro campaign and sent the matter to the court’s full bench, which was expected to begin voting on it throughout Wednesday.
A Nation’s Faith and Football
The controversy has unfolded against a broader conversation in Brazil about the country’s changing religious landscape. The shift has even bled into the national obsession with soccer, with Brazilians complaining on social media that the rise of Evangelical Protestantism was to blame for the national team’s poor showing at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Fans argued across platforms that the team played far better when it was, in their phrasing, “behaving like Catholics.”
Brazil holds a record five World Cup titles and stands as the tournament’s most successful nation, though it has endured two decades of disappointing results, last lifting the trophy in 2002.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2026/09/30/leftists-try-to-weaponize-virgin-mary-against-conservative-flavio-bolsonaro/