President Lula’s decision to appoint the Attorney General of the Federation, Jorge Messias, to the Federal Supreme Court pleased the evangelical sector, but created a gap in the government’s dialogue with religious leaders. Since the beginning of the PT member’s third term, Messias has played the role of planalto spokesman at religious events, such as the March for Jesus, and has been one of the government’s main bridges with the Evangelical Parliamentary Front and with leaders of large churches, such as the Assembly of God.
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Labor members already admit it is difficult to imagine another senior member holding the position at this level, even though the environment minister, Marina Silva, is also an evangelical. In recent months, First Lady Ganga da Silva has begun attending meetings with progressive evangelical leaders through channels opened by the Front of Evangelicals for the Rule of Law and parliamentarians such as federal MP Benedetta da Silva (PT-RJ), but these denominations are smaller and more attuned to the political sphere. One possibility is not to centralize this representation in the evangelical environment under only one name until the end of the term.
In the past three years, it has been Messias who has represented the government at the Jesus March in São Paulo, the country’s largest evangelical march that usually receives mainly right-wing politicians on stage – former president Jair Bolsonaro and São Paulo governor Tarcisio de Freitas (Republicans) were among those who spoke at the events. In 2023, the first year of Lula’s current government, Messias was booed at the event, but returned the following year. On each occasion, he was responsible for delivering the leaders of the march, Apostle Estefam Hernández and Bishop Sonia, of the Renaissance em Cristo, a message from Lula to the evangelists.
Messias also mobilized this religious capital to reduce Senate resistance to approval in the STF. About a month ago, Messias and the Minister of Institutional Relations, Glessy Hoffmann, organized a meeting between Lula and the Bishop of the Assembly of God of Bras, Samuel Ferreira, accompanied by Rep. Cesinha de Madureira (PSD-SP). Last week, Messias went to the church’s national congress in São Paulo, where he embraced STF Minister Andre Mendonça, an evangelical nominated by Bolsonaro who supports his candidacy to the court.
Cesinha claims that he knows of no other minister capable of being Lula’s spokesperson in the midst of Christ’s conversion. The same diagnosis was made by state Rep. Luiz Fernando Teixeira (PT-SP), close to the Assembly of God in ABC São Paulo, and priests who reject or sympathize with the current government. When contacted, Glessi, who had been organizing meetings with pastors and evaluating new strategies for reaching out to evangelicals, had not returned.
Bishop Robson Rodofalio, the leader of Sara Nossa Terra who criticized Bolsonaro’s arrest, is one of those who assessed Messias’ visit to the STF as positive. For him, the passage “triumphed” with Lula’s decision, even though he is on the left, and it will be up to the evangelical parliamentary front to build a bridge with the planalto from the exit.
– He has all the competence and is a true Christian, a professed evangelical, committed to our agendas. I see it as a very positive thing. He said the fact that he was a member of the Labor Party was the story of his life.
Samuel Ferreira stated that Messias is a “prepared person” and that he “defends customs and agendas that are important to the country”, and praised actions taken by Lula’s government such as the passage of the law stipulating that there should be no working relationship between churches and their members and the rule prohibiting the use of neutral language at official events. He cites names that could continue the dialogue with the sector, in addition to Glesi, Health Minister Alexandre Padilha, and political scientist Marco Aurelio Santana Ribeiro, who is looking after Lula’s agenda.
— Christ, even in STF, will continue to be evangelical. Certainly, within what is republican and within the law, he will still have many evangelical friends. We have other people, like Senator Jack Wagner, Minister Padilha, and Minister Glezzi, who speak to us very well.
Sergio Dusilek, one of the priests who approached the government to reject Bolsonarianism, recognizes that Marina has been the target of a negative campaign in large churches, just like Lula, and that Janja faces a natural barrier because she is not evangelical. Thus, Christ performs a function that is difficult to replicate, although Dusselek sees this as an opportunity for the president to develop a new communication strategy, aimed more at the base, rather than the leaders of large synagogues.