The death of the symbolic thud for the, who had the religious leader and head of state as an asset to move agendas in the national political universe and contain the advance of the radical right, experts heard by Sheet.
They talk about Francisco’s proximity to the Brazilian left, especially with the president (), and the opposition of the pontiff to the former president (), who during his term did not visit him. Lula, in turn, during his time in prison in Curitiba and met him twice during his third term.
at the age of 88 due to a stroke followed by heart failure. It was known for its focus on the poorest and most marginalized, environmental protection and public positioning for the end of conflicts such as Gaza. The pontiff’s funeral took place this Saturday (26), with a. Now one by an assembly of cardinals.
For the experts heard by SheetFrancis had an agenda of social inclusion that braked fundamentalism within the Catholic Church itself, in a context marked by the growing conservatism in Brazilian society also by the rise of evangelicals.
According to Luis Gustavo Teixeira, PhD in Political Science and Professor at Unipampa (Federal University of Pampa), the Pope’s death has, in national politics, a considerable symbolic impact that undergoes two perspectives.
The first of these is the loss on the left of an important international actor used to mobilize political themes. The asset, says Teixeira, was especially valuable because “politics in Brazil uses religion as an argument of authority.” In this sense, religious points of view are often used to support political actions on both the left and right.
Another aspect was the existence of a counterposition in the position of highest authority of the Catholic Church to radical segments of the institution itself, which, for Teixeira, helped shield the Catholicism of a conservative monopoly that can feed less democratic regimes in different countries.
According to André Ricardo de Souza, coordinator of Nerep (Center for Studies of Religion, Economics and Politics) and professor at UFSCar (Federal University of São Carlos), the Pope was “effectively a significant influence in Brazil in political terms in recent years”, mainly because of his relationship with Lula.
Souza points out that there was a “very large binding on the left in Brazil to Francis, large as never before”. Scenario that, he points out, inevitably also generated criticism of the pontiff.
Because of this, the expert understands that the left may lose an important political support for confrontation in containing progressive causes, depending on the profile of the new Pope.
From an electoral point of view, however, he sees the importance of the Pope relativized in a context of advancement of evangelicals and due to the conservatism of his own clergy.
The expert talks about a Catholic church that, with the Papacy of Francis, had “progressive head and conservative body”, with few isolated and persecuted progressive clerics.
Robson Sávio Reis Souza, professor at the PUC Minas Religion Science Department and PhD in Social Sciences, states that the Pope was a head of state with a clear notion that “one of the noblest ways to become a fairer and more equal society is through institutional politics.”
He understands that not only the left, but also groups of the democratic right lose with the death of Francis in a context of ascension of the far right globally.
Reis Souza states that the Pope focused his performance in three pillars: social justice, beware of the environment and attention to religious ethics overlapping moralism. “Three aspects that focus a lot on the field of politics, because today there is a certain resurrection of political sectors that preach a model of imposing, moralist and exclusive religion,” he says.
He points out, however, not to find the left label appropriate to classify the pontiff. “Francisco was not a left -wing Pope. What I think is that he had an ethics, from the point of view of thinking the world, society and governments, very clear. Governments including a democratic, liberal right, respect for human rights, had affinity with the Pope,” he says.
