Kicking of the saint
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page.
|
 |
The name of this article may be improper for Wikipedia. To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article may need to be moved to a better name that matches the subject. The current name may violate one or more of Wikipedia's naming conventions, or is otherwise inaccurate. Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
The Kicking of the saint was a controversial late night television incident first broadcast live by the Brazilian television network Rede Record on October 12, 1995, a national holiday in which Our Lady of Aparecida, the Black Madonna which is the patron saint of Brazil, is venerated.
For ten minutes, Sérgio Von Helde, a televangelist bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (which owns Rede Record), repeatedly kicked an image of Our Lady of Aparecida that he had bought, claiming that a statue made of clay cannot help the Brazilian people with their struggle. On the following day, Rede Globo's Jornal Nacional denounced the incident, causing a nationwide backlash. Several temples of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God were attacked by devout Catholics, and Von Helde had to be transferred to South Africa until the end of the controversy.
