Bolsonaro Receives Anointing From Universal Church Leader Edir Macedo at Temple of Solomon in São Paulo, Brazil

President Jair Bolsonaro was blessed on Sunday morning by Bishop Edir Macedo, founder of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, during a service at the Temple of Solomon in São Paulo. Before about 9,500 worshippers, Bolsonaro knelt at the altar and was anointed by the bishop, who laid his hands on the president’s head and used oil for the anointing. Macedo also asked the congregation to pray for the president.

Macedo said the president “is a man of courage,” although “the press is against the government.” He then led the congregation in prayer, asking for authority to bless the president with wisdom, and for the country to be transformed. He asked for strength and vigor for Bolsonaro and said the prayer was not because of the bishop himself but “because it is the Holy Spirit” (Proverbs 18:17).

At the start of the service, Macedo said that during last year’s presidential campaign, an attempt had been made to bring another candidate to the temple, and he expressed regret that it had not succeeded. He did not name that candidate. Later he told the congregation, “The people who watch us are witnesses of this consecration, and they are witnesses of a before and after from now on.”

During the same service, Macedo referred to the press as “marrom,” a term that can be translated as “brown,” and said that those who lost last year’s election are “dishonored.” He said, “We elected Bolsonaro because we believe in his word. Those who lost the election are dishonored. The entire media is against him. We experience the hell of the media. But I am here, and he is there.”

After the service, the president had lunch with Macedo at a residence belonging to the bishop, next to the Temple of Solomon. His son, Jair Renan, was also present. As he left, the president got out of his convoy’s car to greet the police officers responsible for his security. Earlier that morning, on arriving in São Paulo, Bolsonaro had undergone a brief medical evaluation. He was scheduled to attend a match between Flamengo and Palmeiras that afternoon at the home of television presenter Silvio Santos. The president is due to undergo a new surgery because of the stabbing he suffered during the campaign a year earlier. Doctor Antônio Luiz Macedo, who operated on the president in September 2018 after the attack, confirmed the new procedure and said it would correct a hernia.

The source places the service within a broader pattern of closeness between Bolsonaro and evangelical Christians, whose support it describes as decisive in the election, with Bolsonaro receiving 74% of the vote in the 32 cities where evangelicals are the majority. According to a survey by Jovem Pan radio, of 33 meetings with religious groups between January and August, 30 were with evangelical leaders. The source says the alignment rests mainly on behavioral issues, including conservative proposals such as the Family Statute, which defines a family as formed by a father and a mother. The relationship has not always been smooth. Evangelical leaders voiced dissatisfaction with the government at several points in recent months, including over Bolsonaro’s support for loosening rules on gun purchases in violent cities and rural areas. Since May, however, relations have warmed after the evangelical caucus secured Bolsonaro’s commitment to a package easing church obligations to the tax authority. Among the requests granted were ending the requirement that smaller churches register in the National Register of Legal Entities (CNPJ), and raising from R$1.2 million to R$4.8 million the revenue threshold above which a church must report its daily financial movements.

The source also reports the president’s recent statements. In July, he said his first nomination to the Supreme Federal Court (STF) would be a minister “terribly evangelical.” On Saturday, he said he intended to name an evangelical director to the National Film Agency (Ancine). Speaking at the Army headquarters in Brasília, he said, “It is a Bible under the arm and knowing 200 verses. I am a conservative president.”

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