Lula is as he likes – 06/20/2023 – Elio Gaspari

Lula left for Italy and France. In Rome, she will see Pope Francis, who supported him when he was in jail, and in Paris, she will be with President Emmanuel Macron. It seems like nothing, but his predecessor’s bodyguards got into trouble on the streets of Rome and he didn’t want (or couldn’t) go to Pope Francis. With France it was worse, the captain went to have his hair cut and did not receive a minister from Macron.

Brazil was experiencing a blackout of civility, in which an educated man like the then Minister Paulo Guedes made a vulgar comment about Brigitte, Macron’s wife. (Nonsense of this kind always increases the power of ministers in the Planalto.)

Lula travels carrying an often exaggerated agenda. If they let him, he goes back to defending the creation of an international governance for the environment. UN is not enough for him, which barely works. One thing is certain, Lula has restored the Brazilian president’s international composure. It doesn’t cross his mind to tell the chancellor that he should show his aide-de-camp a speech to polish his bad ideas. Bolsonaro gave this assignment to Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid. The officer is in jail because of the versatility that the boss assigned him.

Lula’s trip to the Holy See breaks a years fast. Pope Francis showed himself to be a renovator, bestowing the cardinal’s hat on d. Leonardo Steiner, Archbishop of Manaus. The decision was undoubtedly appropriate for a time when the Amazon and its peoples are under threat. In addition, history echoed, because if independent Brazil maintained the Amazon that it received from Portugal, it owed much to the religious who entered the forest with their missions. Father Antônio Vieira (1608-1697) suffered at the hands of the settlers who enslaved the people of the land.

Not for nothing, but it is worth remembering that three archdioceses that had cardinals (Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte and Fortaleza) were forgotten. The fact that the archdiocese was occupied by a cardinal does not mean that it will always be a see of cardinals, but above all Porto Alegre would be worth remembering, not least because the south of Brazil is a granary of religious vocations. The German settlers from the town of Forquilhinha in Santa Catarina gave the Church two cardinals —Paulo Evaristo Arns (1921-2016) and Leonardo Steiner—, plus three bishops, 59 priests and a hundred nuns. That, not counting Zilda Arns (1934-2010), sister of d. Paulo and spring of the Pastoral da Criança. She died in the earthquake in Haiti and her beatification process is pending in the Holy See. The cardinal of São Paulo, d. Odilo Scherer, is apparently far from d. Vicente, the first and only cardinal of Porto Alegre.

For centuries, popes have thought twice about doing this to Italian cities. Pius XII died without raising the Archbishop of Milan Giovan Battista Montini to the cardinalate. This is one of the many mysteries of this pope’s personality. In any case, it was useless, as Montini succeeded John II and became Paul VI. He died in 1978 leaving another mystery: among the cardinals in pectore he chose was d. Helder Camara? (Sometimes the pope chooses cardinals in pectore, without revealing their names, so as not to get in trouble with dictatorial governments.)

In Paris, with Macron, he will be free of Vatican protocol. Both will certainly become more resourceful, as they have reasons to do so.

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