Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the PL party's presidential candidate, on Sunday accused members of the CNBB, the conference that gathers Brazil's Catholic bishops, of helping the Workers Party (PT) spread a fake news story about Our Lady of Aparecida. The false posts claim he wants to strip the saint of her title as Brazil's patroness. He spoke in Goiania, in central Brazil, after a campaign motorcade.
The candidate said the rival party had been pushing the rumor for days. "The PT, I know today, had already been trying for some days to push this fake news and managed it with help from people inside the CNBB, unfortunately that is the reality," he told Folha de S.Paulo. Speaking to Estadao, he called it "the biggest fake news of the campaign" and said no bill to change the patroness has ever existed.
The CNBB denied the accusation in a statement. "The CNBB did not produce, authorize or take part in the preparation or release of false information related to the current electoral process," the text reads. The conference said it is not part of any party political structure, and that blaming it for producing or spreading disinformation without proof harms the institution unfairly. The note does not name Bolsonaro and closes with the sentence: "A lie is not fought with another lie."
How the rumor started
The rumor began spreading on Thursday night after Em Pauta, a GloboNews program, reported that the Catholic Church was preparing to counter an alleged evangelical push to end the patroness title. Hours later the channel corrected itself: the bill had been introduced in the lower house of Congress in 2007 and shelved in 2008. GloboNews apologized for the error. Even so, nearly 1 million posts on the subject appeared in under three days, according to a survey cited by Estadao. Bolsonaro's campaign says the narrative started with a post by the influencer behind the "Dilma Bolada" profile, Jeferson de Oliveira Monteiro.
Back and forth in the courts
On Friday, Electoral Court (TSE) justice Andre Mendonca ordered the removal of 1,125 posts linking the candidate to the issue. On Sunday, Supreme Court justice Flavio Dino struck down that ruling and restored the posts. "What happened today, with yet another stroke of the pen by Flavio Dino, is a defense he is making of the PT's league of lies," Bolsonaro told Estadao. To Folha, he blamed desperation on the other side: "Desperation has hit them, and that is why they know we will win in the first round." He added that rivals are acting "thinking that anything goes, but it does not".
The PT did not respond to a request for comment from Estadao. The first round of the presidential election is on October 4. Flavio Bolsonaro and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the PT are running at the top of the polls.