Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Oct 29, 2010 / 16:12 pm
The secretary general of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of Brazil, Bishop Dimas Lara Barbosa, and the spokesman for the Brazilian president, Gilberto Carvalho, are denying reports that President Lula da Silva threatened to revise the accords with the Vatican if Church leaders continued to question Workers’ Party candidate Dilma Rousseff’s stance on abortion.
In an article published by the newspaper O Globo, Carvalho denied a report several weeks ago by the Italian news agency ANSA that claimed the president had made the statements.
According to O Globo, Bishop Dimas Lara said, “I have received nothing on this. I was surprised by the news. There was no threat.”
“That would be the last thing somebody would say during the middle of the presidential campaign,” he added.