A mural behind the altar showing Catholic activists killed in land disputes in Brazil was covered by the parish priest who claimed that “most churchgoers don’t like to see those drawings while praying”.
The case, which sparked controversy on social media and ended up with the covering being removed 10 days after it was denounced, happened in the city of Anapu, in the Amazonian Pará state.
The mural was painted in 2009 in the Church of Saint Lucy. It shows a brown-skinned Jesus wearing peasant’s clothes and crucified on a tree. He’s sided by two major martyrs of land disputes in Brazil, Father Josimo Tavares, a coordinator of the Bishops’ Conference’s Land Pastoral Commission (CPT) who was killed in 1986, and U.S.-born Sister Dorothy Stang, murdered in 2005.
