在巴西总统大选前夕，一场堪称“圣经级”的争端突然爆发，巴西的守护神——阿帕雷西达圣母（Our Lady of Aparecida）意外地成为了这场胶着选战中的关键筹码。
A row of Biblical proportions has erupted in the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, with the country’s patron saint, Our Lady of Aparecida, emerging as an unlikely kingmaker in the deadlocked race.
在周日的投票前，两位领跑者——左翼总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦（Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva）及其极右翼挑战者弗拉维奥·博索纳罗（Flávio Bolsonaro）在民调中旗鼓相当。
Ahead of Sunday’s vote, the two frontrunners – the leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his far-right challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro – are level in the polls.
然而，近日有传言称，身为前总统雅伊尔·博索纳罗之子的弗拉维奥·博索纳罗可能会剥夺这位广受尊崇的守护神的地位，这在全国范围内引发了强烈抗议。一些人开始质疑，此事是否会使这场势均力敌的选举向身为天主教徒的卢拉倾斜。
But in recent days, speculation that Bolsonaro – son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro– might strip the widely cherished patroness of her position have caused a nationwide outcry, leaving some to question if it could tip the knife-edge election in favour of Lula, who is Catholic.
一直追踪这场罕见选举争端的政治分析师托马斯·特劳曼（Thomas Traumann）表示：“这可能会左右局势的发展。”
“It could sway things one way or the other, said Thomas Traumann, a political analyst who has been tracking the unusual election row.
目前尚不清楚这场骚动究竟是如何开始的，但上周，博索纳罗的一番言论在网上疯传，导致关于此事的辩论彻底爆发。博索纳罗的政治运动中包含许多福音派基督徒，他在最近的一次广播中称，他担任总统后的首要行动之一将是“颁布法令，宣布巴西属于主耶稣基督”。
It remains unclear precisely how the commotion began, but debate over the issue exploded last week when a remark by Bolsonaro, whose movement includes many evangelical Christians, went viral online. In a recent broadcast, the former senator said one of his first acts as president would be to “decree that Brazil belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ”.
一些天主教徒将此视为这位新教政治家计划罢黜阿帕雷西达圣母的信号，尽管只有梵蒂冈（于1930年宣布她为巴西守护神）才有权这样做。
Some Catholics took that as a sign that the Protestant politician planned to unseat Our Lady of Aparecida, although only the Vatican – which declared her Brazil’s patroness in 1930 – has the authority to do so.
博索纳罗与福音派领袖JB·卡瓦略（JB Carvalho）之间被报道的联系加剧了这些怀疑，卡瓦略此前曾呼吁罢黜这位守护神。2007年，博索纳罗的另一位盟友也曾试图提出类似的立法，但该法案最终被撤回。
Those suspicions were reinforced by Bolsonaro’s reported links to JB Carvalho, an evangelical leader who has previously called for the patroness’s removal. In 2007, another Bolsonaro ally tried to introduce legislation to the same effect, although the bill was dropped.
博索纳罗称有关他计划罢黜阿帕雷西达圣母的说法是“假新闻”。他声称这些谣言是由卢拉的支持者以及天主教主教组织——巴西主教会议（Episcopal Conference of Brazil）的成员散布的。该会议否认了这一指控。
Bolsonaro has called claims he plans to unseat Our Lady of Aparecida “fake news”. He alleged the rumours were being spread by Lula supporters, as well as members of the Episcopal Conference of Brazil, a Catholic bishops’ organisation. The conference rejected the charge.
卢拉的左翼运动利用了这场风波，敏锐地意识到这可能损害极右翼候选人的选情，因为该国近57%的人口是天主教徒。由于结果预计将比上一次更加胶着——当时卢拉以不到2%的优势击败了雅伊尔·博尔索纳罗——即使是少量的选票也可能决定胜负。
Lula’s leftwing movement has taken advantage of the furore, keenly aware it could hurt the far-right candidate’s chances in a country where nearly 57% of the population is Catholic With the result expected to be even tighter than the last one – when Lula beat Jair Bolsonaro by less than 2% – even a small number of votes could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
卢拉在竞选途中手持圣母玛利亚雕像亮相，而他的妻子简雅·达席尔瓦则佩戴着一枚纪念圣母阿帕雷西达的吊坠。“只要我是总统，就没人能不敬圣母阿帕雷西达。没人。人们需要学会尊重所有宗教，”卢拉在亚马逊地区的一场集会上表示。卢拉的副总统兼竞选搭档、虔诚的天主教徒热拉尔多·阿尔克明发布了一段视频，描述他收到了天主教徒发来的信息，他们“担心国家的走向以及流传的可怕消息”。阿尔克明向选民保证，他和卢拉将维护和保护“对巴西家庭如此神圣的宗教传统”。
Lula has appeared on the campaign trail holding statuettes of the Virgin Mary while his wife, Janja da Silva, has worn a pendant honouring Our Lady of Aparecida. “As long as I’m president, no one will disrespect Our Lady of Aparecida. No one. People need to learn to respect all religions,” Lula told a rally in the Amazon. Lula’s vice-president and running mate, a devout Catholic called Geraldo Alckmin, published a video describing how he had received messages from Catholics “worried about the direction of the country and the terrible news that has been circulating”. Alckmin assured voters he and Lula would preserve and protect “religious traditions, so sacred to Brazilian families”.
这场争端反映了巴西曾经占主导地位的天主教会与自80年代以来迅速发展的福音派运动之间的竞争与张力。
The row speaks to the rivalry and tensions between Brazil’s once dominant Catholic church and the evangelical movement, which has grown rapidly since the 80s.
特劳曼表示：“这触动了一个痛处，即福音派日益增长的力量。福音派约占人口的30%，但他们的政治权力远超30%——在博尔索纳罗主义内部甚至更为显著。”
Traumann said: “It touched a raw nerve, which is the growing power of the evangelicals. Evangelicals make up about 30% of the population, but their political power is much greater than 30% – and within Bolsonarismo it is even more significant”.
特劳曼认为，无论博尔索纳罗是否真的打算移除守护圣人，这场风波都触动了“天主教徒被推向体制之外的真实恐惧”。“我毫不怀疑这将在选举中发挥重要作用。[弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗]知道这招反噬了，”他补充道。
Traumann believed that, irrespective of whether Bolsonaro really did intend to remove the patroness, the furore had tapped into “a genuine fear among Catholics of being pushed outside the system”. “I have no doubt that this is going to be important [in the election]. [Flávio Bolsonaro] knows it has landed badly,” he added.
历史学家路易斯·安东尼奥·西马斯（Luiz Antônio Simas）是《So Many Marys: Our Lady in Popular Culture》一书的作者。他表示，这场争议“反映了阿帕雷西达圣母（Aparecida）以及圣母玛利亚在巴西文化中的广泛影响力”。
Luiz Antônio Simas, a historian and author of the book So Many Marys: Our Lady in Popular Culture said the outcry “was a symptom of the popularity that Aparecida and the Virgin Mary in general have in the formation of our culture”.
“对巴西的流行文化而言，阿帕雷西达圣母的意义远超于她所供奉的祭坛——她是塑造巴西流行文化特征的关键元素，”西马斯说。他还指出，阿帕雷西达圣母的形象也渗透到了桑巴舞表演、足球文化以及非裔巴西人的宗教信仰中。
“For Brazilian popular culture, Our Lady of Aparecida transcends altars … She is extremely powerful as a defining element of what we envision Brazilian popular culture to be,” Simas said, noting how Brazil’s “Black Madonna” was present in samba parades, football culture and Afro-Brazilian faiths.
这场争议在选举前夕爆发，西马斯指出，阿帕雷西达圣母长期以来一直是天主教徒与福音派之间的争议焦点——福音派反对天主教对圣徒和圣像的崇拜。他回忆起1995年发生的一起严重事件：当时一位新五旬节派牧师在电视节目中踢毁了一尊阿帕雷西达圣母的雕像。
While the debate flared up on the eve of the election, Simas said Our Lady of Aparecida was a long-running point of tension between Catholics and evangelicals, who oppose the Catholic veneration of saints and images. He recalled a major outcry in 1995 when a neo-Pentecostal pastor kicked a statue of Our Lady of Aparecida on TV.
西马斯认为，这场争议的核心在于宗教层面的种族主义——因为阿帕雷西达圣母的形象实际上是对圣母玛利亚的“黑人化”诠释。他补充道：“当这一切与动荡的政治局势相结合时（尤其是在选举前夕这种充满争议的环境中），所有这些矛盾和争议自然就会浮出水面。”
Simas believed religious racism was at the heart of the outcry, given that Our Lady of Aparecida was a black representation of the Virgin Mary. “When all of this comes into contact with a turbulent political context, in a country experiencing the tensions of a highly contested pre-election scenario, all these controversies come to the surface,” Simas added.