(JTA) — Federal police in Brazil raided the church whose pastor had prayed with congregants for another Holocaust.
Friday’s raid in Rio de Janeiro was part of an operation titled “Shalom” by the federal police against Tupirani da Hora Lores, who heads the Pentecostal Generation Jesus Christ Church, Globo reported. Police confiscated literature there.
Last year, da Hora Lores was filmed preaching and praying with his congregants, saying “Massacre the Jews, God, hit them with your sword, for they have left God, they have left the nations.” His congregants are heard repeating his words passionately.
“They contrived, went with prostitutes, and when they were told to repent they said they’d do it but they lied,” the pastor said, possibly in reference to the forced conversions to Christianity during the Inquisition.
“God, what you have done in World War II, you must do again, this is what we ask for in our prayers to you: Justice, justice, justice!” da Hora Lores shouted at his church, a small and radical evangelical congregation.
Raniery Cavalcanti, a lawyer for Sinagoga Sem Fronteiras, a network of Jewish communities in Brazil, filed a complaint for incitement against da Hora Lores. The Jewish Federation of Rio de Janeiro and the CONIB National Jewish umbrella also took legal actions against da Hora Lores.
The pastor “should have been detained,” Rabbi Gilberto Ventura, the Sao Paulo-based founder of Sinagoga Sem Fronteiras, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “But the fact police raided his church is already a big development.”