Brazil government scrambles to repair damage with Evangelicals after pro-abort appointment
February 21, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) — Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her administration are seeking to mend fences with the powerful Evangelical caucus of the National Congress following her recent decision to appoint abortion enthusiast Eleonora Menicucci as her Minister of Women’s Policies.
In an attempt to head off a revolt against her administration by the caucus, known as the Evangelical Parliamentary Front, Rousseff sent Secretary General of the Presidency Gilberto Carvalho to reassure the group that the president has not changed her claimed opposition to abortion, nor reneged on her 2010 campaign promise not to introduce legislation to legalize the deadly procedure. Menicucci’s pro-abortion position, Carvalho said, is a private opinion.
“President Dilma has asked that I reaffirm for the caucus that the position of the government regarding abortion is the position that she took in the electoral campaign, and which is explicit in all of that process and that the positions we the ministers hold publicly are not individual positions,” said Carvalho. “They are positions of the government, and the position of the government regarding that issue will be absolutely clear and will continue to be so.”
The hiring of Menicucci has caused an eruption of controversy in Brazil, whose electorate is strongly religious and pro-life. Menicucci has a history not only of supporting the legalization of abortion, but has even boasted of being trained to do abortions in Colombia, and of having had two of her own children aborted.
Menicucci has also spoken proudly of her homosexual trysts and sexual promiscuity during her previous career as a member of a communist revolutionary organization during the 1970s. Menicucci was imprisoned in the same facility as Rousseff herself, who was also a member of a violent revolutionary group at the time.
Carvalho also found himself forced to apologize to the caucus for remarks he recently made at a meeting of the World Social Forum, in which he reportedly spoke against Evangelical influences on the lower classes of society through the media. He has also been accused of having counseled the creation of programming to counter the Evangelical influence, which he denied.
“The apology I made was not for my words, but for the feelings that they caused in some deputies and senators,” Carvalho told the press later.
Tension run high between the presidential administration of Dilma Rousseff and many televangelists, whose preaching contradicts the leftist social agenda of Rousseff’s labor party.
Following a three-hour closed-door meeting with the caucus, members reportedly expressed some degree of satisfaction with Carvalho’s “apology,” but remained circumspect.
“Pardoning is different than forgetting,” Evangelical deputy Anthony Garotinho told the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Article by Julio Severo officially published by the Evangelical Parliamentary Front: Helping Take Care of the Social Health
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