Members of one of his former communities said they doubt that he used incorrect formulas for sacraments while he worked there, and many of them recall him fondly as one of the most important priests in their lives.

The Rev. Júlio Lancellotti is São Paulo’s designated vicar for street people. He has been posting images of spikes and other elements of hostile architecture gathered from cell phone photos or video from all over Brazil.

Criminals “are not dangerous people. They are only people who are not sufficiently loved.”

In a region of vast distances, weak infrastructure and a relatively small number of priests, religious and laywomen like Sister Laura are the mainstay of Catholic spirituality.

Besides taking up the challenge of exploring new frontiers of evangelization in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Brazilian women religious have also become evangelizers of the “old continent,” Europe, where female vocations have radically declined in recent decades.

The invasion of public land by big landowners and illegal miners at the expense of Indigenous groups and small growers has led to record numbers of violent conflicts in Brazil’s rural and forest areas.