Thursday, November 24, 2011

Government seeks to shut down Catholic TV network in ongoing conflict over abortion

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

SAO PAULO, November 23, 2011 LifeSiteNews.com - The Federal government of Brazil, currently controlled by the pro-abortion Labor Party, is attempting to shut down Brazil’s largest Catholic television network in apparent retaliation for removing Labor Party hosts from its lineup.

According to local pro-lifers, the decision to attack New Song TV (TV Cancao Nova) appears to be the latest episode in an ongoing conflict between the government and the Catholic Church in Brazil over the latter’s rejection of the pro-abortion and homosexualist policies of the Labor Party.

According to local media, federal government prosecutors have filed civil suits to revoke the licenses of New Song TV, as well as a Catholic station known as Aparecida TV, because their paperwork did not follow proper procedures when their licenses were issued in 1997 and 2001.  They deny their decision has to do with the programming content of the stations.

However, the attack on the stations came only two days after New Song TV announced that it would be pulling a prominent Labor Party politician from its programming following a protest from Catholics over the party’s support of legalized abortion, as well as homosexual unions and laws against “homophobia.”

Brazilian pro-life activists believe that the station was pressured to accept the Labor Party officials following the hotly-contested presidential elections in 2010, which Labor Party candidate Dilma Rousseff almost lost due to her party’s controversial positions, which were publicly denounced by Catholic bishops and priests.

A priest on New Song TV denounced the Labor Party during the elections as pro-abortion, homosexualist, and Marxist, and said he would never vote for them, provoking the party’s ire.

During the elections the government confiscated materials publicizing the Catholic Church’s teaching on the right-to-life, and reportedly threatened Church officials with canceling Brazil’s treaty with the Vatican, which includes government funding for schools. The confiscation was later ruled illegal by a Brazilian court, although the elections had already passed and Rousseff had been elected.

Contact information:

Embassy of Brazil in the USA
3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
20008-3634
Phone: (202) 238-2700    
Fax: (202) 238-2827
Email: ambassador@brasilemb.org

Embassy of Brazil in Canada
450 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6M8
Phone:  (613) 237-1090 or (613) 755-5160    
Fax: (613) 237-6144
E-mail: mailbox@brasembottawa.org

Embassy of Brazil in Ireland
Block 8, Harcourt Centre
Charlotte Way
Dublin 2, Irlanda
Tel. +353 1 4756000    
Fax. +353 1 4751341
Email: brasemb.dublin@itamaraty.gov.br

Embassies of Brazil to other Nations here.

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