Afro-Brazilian religions

Soccer player Paulinho won’t let intolerance of his Afro-Brazilian religion stop his faith

By Mauricio Savarese — September 29, 2023
LAGOA SANTA, Brazil (AP) — Academics and religious-freedom advocates say that Afro-Brazilian religions are sometimes demonized in neo-Pentecostal churches.

In sacred Brazil dunes, critics see evangelical encroachment

By David Biller — September 29, 2022
(AP) — Afro Brazilian religious groups see a public works project at the Abaete dunes as an attempt to Christianize yet another public space, part of evangelicals’ rising influence in the country’s halls of power.

In Brazil, historic black lay Catholic ‘brotherhoods’ fight to survive

By Eduardo Campos Lima — December 6, 2019
(RNS) — After centuries resisting slavery, racism and inequality, dozens of black Catholic lay associations are hopeful that a new network and changes in the Church will extend their history.

Practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions fear increasing intolerance under Bolsonaro

By Eduardo Campos Lima — April 25, 2019
SAO PAULO (RNS) — During his campaign, Brazil's new president unapologetically dismissed the concerns of Afro-Brazilian communities, announcing at one point, 'The state is Christian and the minority will have to change.'

John of God’s sexual assault arrest tarnishes Brazil’s spiritist movement

By Eduardo Campos Lima — January 30, 2019
SAO PAOLO, Brazil (RNS) — More than 600 women — varying in age from 8 to 67 — have accused the medium of sexual assault, adding a distressing chapter to the long history of spiritist mediums in Brazil.

In Brazil, religious gang leaders say they’re waging a holy war

By Robert Muggah — November 3, 2017
(THE CONVERSATION) — The expression 'evangelical drug trafficker' may sound incongruous, but in Rio de Janeiro, it’s an increasingly familiar phenomenon.
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