Q.- You have received death threats. From whom? Why?
A.- Threats from the mafia of sexual exploitation of the young and of human trafficking, especially for Europe. Last year, on 23 December, my name appeared in the newspaper chain O Globo, with fifteen others. In that group of 16, three of us are bishops of Pará, of the Eastern Amazon. I have grounds to believe I am wanted by the drug traffickers because I oppose directly and whenever I have the chance this barbaric invasion and destruction of the human person, of the family and of society. And also by some groups of politicians whom I have denounced in the media for their total and guilty disregard for human life and dignity and for the fundamental rights of the person. I am wanted and I have to be careful.
Q.- Why did you refuse the police protection offered by the Brazilian State?
A.- I did that for several reasons. First, because the protection that the State can offer is relative; as the State Prosecutor of Brazil told me, if they want me killed they can. Second, bodyguards are usually fathers, husbands, who would leave a whole family just to defend one person. Third, there are 200 of us who are “marked for death” and the majority does not receive any kind of police protection. I believe we cannot accept that kind of division, that distinction between a bishop and the rest of people who, like us, are also on the death list.
Change of Habits
Q.- Do you take any precaution?
A.- I do take some basic measures. For example, I usually do not walk alone, and I don’t ride buses now as before, I take the taxi. In the morning, when I go from the bishop’s residence to the port, I tell the microbus driver to advise me two blocks earlier so I can alight or get up fast without having to wait exposed to any shot. Before, I used to think of death, but now much more; when I take the boat I think: “here they can also kill me”, especially when I make trips into the interior, to the communities where from a fast craft they can gun me down.
Last year, on 23 December, my name appeared in the newspaper chain O Globo, with fifteen others. Q.- You are not afraid?
A.- Thoughts of death are frequent, but they are peaceful, serene, calm, and without anxiety or anguish. I always answer news reporters that often I am happy thinking of the possibility of dying a martyr, of dying for the Gospel, as the Brazilian bishops declared in a note they published last April in which they explained our situation. For me, it would be a joy to be able to give my life for Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died for me. For me, that would be the best conclusion to my existence and I would thank God for it as the greatest gift I could receive from him. In this sense I am at peace.
Marked for death
Q.- It seems that instead of scaring you, the death threats encourage you.
A.- It is interesting to see how preaching the Gospel from this condition of being “marked for death” makes one preach with greater liberty, before ministers as well as before State lawyers, saying: “we have to move on, we have to put our lives at risk”. If we do not assume a determined stand and do not make an option for ethical and Gospel values, we will not be able to accomplish anything. From this condition one feels joyful and happy to be able to preach the Gospel in a manner that is simple, inculturated and realistic. And also to be able to say: “Lord, how good it is because with these death threats, many are confirmed in the faith and are decided to go till the end also”.
Q.- In your diocese there are 300 kilometers of Amazonian coastline where all kinds of merchandise enter and leave.
A.- Exactly, the geographic setup of our mission lends itself to fostering and facilitating the presence of mafias, drug traffickers and enemies of social stability, starting with those 300 kilometers forming the Amazonian delta. They are 300 unprotected kilometers, never are the ships, small or big, of the Brazilian navy seen there. Through this gateway enter arms, enter and exit drugs, because it is the easiest route for those coming from the Amazonian region starting with Colombia, Ecuador, Peru… everything goes through that river. Moreover its nearness to the French Guiana enormously facilitates human trafficking as well as biopiracy. It is a completely abandoned region, it is a problem of national security for Brazil.
Destination: Europe
Q.- For there to be sale and supply, there must be a demand, the demand for trafficked women. Where does it come from?
A.- The demand happens right there in Marajó with the mafia bosses and their minions. Right there they offer the girls the possibility to go abroad, some are deceived, others know the real score. The girls think that in Europe they will find a way to live in ease and dignity. The reality is a road of no return that destroys human dignity and the future of entire families.
Q.- Spain is one of the countries where most of the trafficked women, many of them minors, end up. Have you felt the support of the Spanish Church when denouncing this human trafficking?
A.- The issue is of great concern and anguish for me. I believe that the whole Church in Brazil and that of Spain, as the principal receiving country – not all remain here, many go to the rest of Europe – must take a concerted effort and put pressure on official organisms for a greater vigilance and investigation into this unfortunate and shameful human trafficking, so unworthy of humanity and so contrary to the pure Gospel.
Regaining life
Q.- Is the Church doing something more to help save these persons?
A.- Our ecclesial actions are helping the official organism of the State and the Nation to come up with specific activities and programs where these classes of people are defended and prevented from falling into such dangerous traps. I believe that in this sense we are doing a very good work because it is about passing new legislation, with a new awareness in an area that, up to three years ago, was untouched with no one getting himself involved. With this risk we are taking, those girls and their families who really want to be protected are starting to have a way of protection, of regaining life.
Abortion and homosexuality
Q.- And Lula’s government is not doing anything?
A.- As regard Lula’s government, let us go by parts. For example, the defense of life: abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage … It is a government that has gone to the dogs. A bill is being processed in the Senate to completely liberalize abortion such that it could be allowed till the very moment of birth. That’s something barbaric. Just one detail, Lula’s specific stance is total cowardice. In official declarations to the great press agencies, he says he is a Catholic, as is his wife as well as his mother, and that they are against abortion, but that he wants to hear the Brazilian people pronounce on abortion. And he knows that the people have been object of blunt, scientific, constant and permament statistics that says 87 percent reject abortion, 90 percent is against its liberalization and so on more or less. If he thinks that the Brazilian people is the Senate or the House of Representatives … in the Senate, 42 percent of the members are accused of civil or criminal cases … and Lula is going to listen to these guys decide on helpless human life? It is absurd, as absurd as his calling himself Catholic.
Corrupt politicians
If we go to Congress, the number of people with civil or criminal cases is even higher. Two years ago, under the presidency of Severino Cavalcanci, a “radiant Catholic”, Congress approved experiments on embryonic cells, but it was learned that the congressmen were bought, and he himself was proven corrupt two months later and this president of Congress who defended the passage of the law had to be replaced. These are the legislators on issues of human life, human dingity, human rights in Brazil, and this has the approval – I say it with no hesitation – it is approved by our president Lula. With his prestige and political influence in Congress and Senate, if he wanted, if he were a coherent and not a cowardly Catholic, he would have already stopped some bills such as the approval of gay marriages and the law against homophobia with which neither you and I could read the first chapter of Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans (where he speaks of homosexuality) because we would be haled to jail for three years, according to the bill that is being processed in Senate since last year. Nonsense! It is ideology, it is no longer about accepting the homosexual. In the Church everybody respects everybody, but this is pure ideology, it is the exaltation, deification, idolatry of the homosexual and the gay. That is to say, they continue on the sociological plane what on the psychological plane the majority of psychologists say about the narcissism of the homosexual. And this already on the official level of legislation and on the level of political representation.
Life examples
Q.- What do the Augustinian Recollects think of your situation?
A.- An Augustinian Recollect told me: “my mother phoned me the other day and asked: my son, I am hearing reports that you are in the diocese of a bishop threatened with death, is that true? Yes, mother, it’s true. But my son, be careful because if not, I would die of fright. Mother, I know that Jesus Christ sent me here as an Augustinian Recollect, to this parish as shepherd of this flock and here there are many abandoned and wounded sheep. If I have to die for these sheep, mother, I will do so”. Before such an example, it is marvelous to be able to live the Gospel with that kind of brothers, with priests of that caliber. It inspires you to enter into the fight. Others are more of waiting to see what happens. For others it is a slow process of assimilation.
Unconditional support
Q.- Have you received some kind of support from the Order of Augustinian Recollects?
A.- Yes, complete support from the General Curia and from my provincial superior. Total support. They have called me to ask about my situation and they have said that the whole Order is praying. They encourage me and tell me that they are with us in the mission. This is really splendid, very nice, very good.
Q.- What do the Catholics of Marajó say upon knowing that you have had death threats?
A.- The people are praying much. Most are surprised and are asking how it is possible that the bishop is being threatened. I notice it in their welcome, in their embrace. Two Sundays ago, in Melgaço, as I was saying goodbye, a father of a family embraced me and clung to me saying, “please, Bishop, don’t allow yourself to get killed, don’t allow yourself to get killed”.