Preaching truth to power: the São Paulo priest standing up to Bolsonaro

Julio Lancellotti is an outspoken champion of homeless people - a cause that makes him unpopular with Brazil's authorities

In 2017, most Brazilians were still unfamiliar with the name Jair Bolsonaro. But for Julio Lancellotti, there was already cause for concern in the reactionary rhetoric of the man who would be elected president two years later under the slogan: Brazil above everything, God above everyone."

I am astonished that a homophobic person like Bolsonaro appears on the presidential ballot," said the priest during mass on 7 March of that year at St Michael the Archangel parish in Sao Paulo's East Zone. The sermon, in which he also preached against rape culture and sexism, was typical of the man who has devoted his life to fighting injustice, often finding himself targeted by conservative politicians as a result.