#brazilian church

[whatisonthemoon]

Rev. Moon's followers turn Brazil swamp into paradise

▲ Pictured: First map shows both Puerta Leda / Project Leda in Paraguay and Jardim in Brazil, and the smaller map below the first map points out Jardim / New Hope. 

Reuters, Dec. 7, 1999 By Noriko Yamaguchi

JARDIM, Brazil, Dec. 7, 1999 (Reuters) - The Rev. Sun Myung Moon was on vacation in Brazil, fishing on the fringes of a huge marsh, when he decided to turn the uncultivated land into paradise.

In just five years since that revelation, the controversial leader of the Unification Church has built a secretive community for his followers -- known to their critics as "Moonies" -- in an area roughly the size of Chicago.

It is found amid wide stretches of rocky infertile farmland in the middle of nowhere, at the end of the world's largest swampland called the Pantanal and a good four-hour drive from Brazil's southwestern city of Campo Grande.

Moon's disciples say he was attracted to the area precisely because it was so remote.

"Why Brazil? Because this place is so underdeveloped and protected from the evils of civilisation. The Reverend thinks this is the best place to practice heavenly life on Earth," said Joo Hyun Lip, education leader for Moon's believers in Jardim.

An imposing white gate at the entrance says "New Hope -- East Garden," a reference to both the surrounding town of Jardim -- Garden in Portuguese -- and to the Garden of Eden. Security guards protect the sprawling community that already has apartment houses for up to 2,000 people, an elementary school, a market and a big temple.

Several hundred church members from the United States, Japan and South Korea flock to this no-man's-land every month, paying a $1,000 fee to pray under the scorching sun and fish in "sacred" lakes once visited by their leader.

Moon's landing in Jardim originally mystified locals who wondered what interest a Korean could have on this side of the world. The 80-year-old religious leader responded by opening up the doors to his empire, allowing dozens of local peasants to come and experience a disciple's life.

Buying Land To Help Illiterate Peasants

Some 100 locals, mostly unmarried, now come to New Hope every month to learn how to read and write. They also receive free meals if they will tolerate several hours of sermons.

New Hope also recruits a handful of young workers to brave long, sweaty days ploughing dusty soil and building dams around mosquito-infested swamps as well as constructing a retirement house for Moon. In return, all the workers get three meals a day with rice and traditional Korean pickles.

This is Moon's way of enlisting new followers from Brazil -- the country with the world's largest Catholic population -- after suffering a drop of popularity in South Korea, Japan and his adopted home, the United States.

"We are educating the poor locals, whose grandfathers were illiterate, whose fathers were illiterate and whose sons will also probably be illiterate," said Cesar Zaduski, the group's Brazilian leader in Jardim.

But millionaire Moon's unusually large purchase of land has started to raise official eyebrows. He took advantage of the country's steep currency devaluation this year to snap up more land around New Hope and cast his net into Paraguay, Brazil's neighbour on the other side of the Pantanal swamps.

Moon says he needs the land to construct a university and a giant soccer stadium to hold his famous mass wedding ceremonies in Brazil. Cash-strapped local landowners were more than happy to trade their uncultivated property for his generous dollars.

The local population had already warmed to Moon after he donated 28 ambulances to poor municipalities and hosted barbecue parties where he gave away imported television sets as prizes. But some Brazilian officials doubt his goodwill.

Officials Worry About Drug Paradise Or Tax Haven

Authorities started questioning Moon's ambitious expansion plans after local police reported two foreigners were found drowned in nearby lakes last year. Police said the victims had actually drowned fishing, but the incident aroused suspicion and the state government of Mato Grosso launched an investigation with the Federal Police into Moon's activities.

They want to know where the money for the land purchases is coming from and what the territory is being used for.

"The Federal Police's major concern is that a lot of drug trafficking goes on in the very region where Moon is buying land," said Rilton Araujo, police chief in Jardim, some 50 miles (80 km) from the border with Paraguay and not far from Bolivia.

Authorities say Brazil is a gateway for selling illegal drugs produced in those two countries.

Jardim Mayor Marcio Monteiro also fears New Hope could be used as a tax haven, pointing to Moon's history of being jailed for tax evasion in the United States in the 1970s.

"They should be paying taxes in Jardim. They are not just a religious organisation but they are actually in a business of accommodation," he said of the thousands of Moon's followers who stay at New Hope.

Moon, who has spent $30 million buying land around Jardim, already owns a bank, hotel and newspaper network in Uruguay as part of his financial ventures. His varied assets in the United States include a Washington-based newspaper, a New York travel agency and an Alaskan seafood canning business.

While locals generally welcome his largess, the Catholic Church is not happy to see his preaching, blending Buddhism, Christianity and Confucianism, spread its influence in Jardim.

"Their geographic expansion is worrying," local priest Bruno Brugnolaro said. "Moon's belief of substituting for Jesus Christ is absurd."

While the religious threat posed by Moon seems remote since Brazil already has a wide range of obscure religious groups of its own, the authorities have definitely tuuned in their radar toward possible drug-related problems or tax-avoidance issues.

"At this point it's more like the locals are just trying to find out what they are all about," said Jardim police chief Araujo. "I think a lot of them are actually opportunists who are even trying to make money out of the Moonies' presence, but it's certainly becoming a big issue."

Related articles below

New York Times: Suspicion Following Sun Myung Moon to Brazil (1999) $16,000.00 Life Offering and the Brazilian providence. Unification Church under siege in Brazil (2002) Brazil FFWPU has many corruption problems Ferabolli of FFWPU Brazil may be a child predator Sun Myung Moon’s Drug Paradise Emperor of the Universe video ‘Privatizing’ covert action: the case of the UC / FFWPU

[art-tropicalia]

Ceiling of the Church of Saint Francis of Assis in Ouro Preto City, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

By the Brazilian painter, sculptor, gilder and teacher, Manoel da Costa Ataíde, an important artist of the baroque-rococo school in Minas Gerais.

[royalarchivist]

Tazercraft and Richarlyson: [ Talking about the butterfly effect that led to Cellbit and Roier getting married ]

Richarlyson: The real cupid is pa Mike.

Pac: If Mike was unintentionally the reason why Richas died*, and that caused Roier and Cellbit to— Wait, you're saying I'm single because you died?! Oh what the hell. No, it's fine, that's fine, that's fine, it's fine, I stayed on the ground so that others could fly, it's fine.

Richarlyson: KKKKKKK Pa, you misunderstood me 0_0

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

Semifinals: Cafuné vs многоꙮчитїй, mnogoočitii

(poll at the end)

Cafuné (Portuguese, Brazilian Portugese)

Portugal: [kɐ.fuˈnɛ] Brazil: [ka.fuˈnɛ]

Translation: The act of running your fingers through someone's hair in a tender way, usually massaging or gently scratching their scalp

Portuguese is an Indo-European language belonging to the Romance branch originating from Portugal. Due to colonialism it is the main and official language of Brazil, where 213 million of its 264 million speakers live. Brazilian Portuguese is considered a dialect of Portuguese as they are mutually intelligible.

Motivation 1: It can be platonic! It can be romantic! It's a cute thing!

Motivation 2: vsjsh affection....... 💞💞 it’s a very sweet gesture it’s very nice and comforting and makes you feel safe

Note: There were two submissions for this word, one in each dialect. Since it’s the same word but with slight pronunciation differences they will compete together

многоꙮчитїй, mnogoočitii (Old Church Slavonic)

IPA not found

Translation: many-eyed

Old Church Slavonic is an extinct language that belonged to the Slavic branch of Indo-European languages. It’s closest related to today’s Macedonian and Bulgarian, but was standardised based on the dialect of Slavs living near 9th century Thessaloniki in today’s Greece by missionaries, who translated Christian literature so they could convert people easier. Old Church Slavonic was then used as the liturgical language of various Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches. A later version of the language called Church Slavonic is still in use in churches today.

Motivation: This particular instance of the word appears once in a manuscript from around 1429. It is the book of psalms, and the word is used in the phrase "серафими многоꙮчитїй," to mean "many-eyed seraphim," as in an angel. the "ꙮ", or multiocular o, is one of my favorite Unicode symbols and also symbols in general. In the next version of Unicode it's going to be updated, because it doesn't even have enough eyes as the original manuscript gave it! Looking past the ꙮ fixation, though, I'm a fan of angels and angelic imagery, as well as eye imagery. A single word for "many-eyed" is really cool to me, since I don't recall there being one in English. It's a useful phrase for more than just angels, like spiders, molluscs...

[postcard-from-the-past]

Rosario church in Ouro Preto, Brazil

Brazilian vintage postcard

[blackmetalvampire]

⚡ SEXTRASH ⚡ 💀 🇧🇷

[deennes]

Church Tower - Torre da Igreja

Ametista do Sul - Rio Grande do Sul - Brasil

[byanass]

[momo-de-avis]

weird question i guess but just curious. other than brit expats, do protestants exist in portugal?

Oh yes, if you consider evangelical communities they are huge. Mostly they're Brazilian communities but not just. The Evangelical church actually has a massive presence in Portugal, especially Lisbon. I live very close to what you would call a mega church (they just don't look like that). IURD, Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus, is VERY controversial and massive

[lady-a-stuff]

I was raised a catholic, my family and relatives are catholic and with this background Bev Keane it's the scariest thing out there. A woman of faith, too much faith. She believes that because she goes to church she is a good person and that she hasn't sinned and deserves the love of god, while people who don't go to church or have committed some sin (according to her) don't deserve and it bothers her that Father Paul and God loves all those renegades and sinners, and yet she still believes she is good. She is the woman who will judge you and turn the back and say you should be afraid of going to hell while not having this fear cause she is good.

But worse than that is that she's a woman with knowledge in her religion and she uses this knowledge to manipulate the reality and people. She's able to quote the bible, but only the parts that interest her and she distorts the text and its meaning to fit in her believe, and the reason she can manipulate everyone is that she's the only one with that knowledge of the bible. We have Monseigneur Pruitt/Father Paul who technically should have know too, but honestly we can't blame the man for get carried away he's literally a vampire. But anyway all the others faithfuls don't know, so when Wade and Sturge see Father Paul besides a dead Joe Collie they are afraid, they don't wanna to simply dump his body, it is Bev who, using the bible, convinces them. Simply like that.

So what is really scary is that we have a lot of religious people who don't know a shit about their religion so are easily manipulate by someone who knows.

[void-tiger]

I thought people were exaggerating at how passive aggressive to downright mean Duolingo could get for skipping lessons but…they really did send a tsundere after me this morning for not doing my Portuguese lessons “in two days , not that I care!” when…I’m not even sure my account’s fully set up yet! 😂

(Why hadn’t I finished? Uh… it wanted me to guess a word that I Think is a true cognate to one I think I remember from Coloring Pages Only High School Spanish…buuuut…I think I want an English-to-Portuguese dictionary since from what I tried to vet out Duolingo isn’t always great at telling you what the correct answer is in the free version…just that you got it wrong. And just uh. Never got back to it.)

[the-acid-pear]

I love how fucked up all the christians subdivisions in the world are bc here we literally just have catholic and evangelical and that's it. I cannot for the life of mine understand anything else that isn't that.

[atwwdoutofcontext]

Brazil is the New Evangelical Gay Church of Murderers

[leodarno]

[deennes]

Road Trip 2023 - Prudentópolis - Paraná.

[leapingthroughworlds]

my new tote bag!!!!

funny thing? i bought it at the church... and that's how they're getting young churchgoers huh...