Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses - Watchtower Archive

Yearbook 105
department of the Ministry of Justice, which has the final
say in the matter. The clash they have with the Society
is, then, clearly one of religious prejudice, the fruit of
exclusive arbitrariness. A director in the department made
it very plain when he said, "This is a Catholic country,
your organization is demoralizing to Brazilian customs and
ways of Ufe, which are exclusively Catholic; therefore
these young ladies (referring to the seven Gilead sisters) as
well as their teachings are definitely out of place here. I
shall have to await the decision of the federal court on
the legality of your organization. If it is decided favorably
for you, then I will let the missionaries remain."
Due to this hostile attitude on the part of the clergy no
Society of Jehovah's witnesses has ever been recognized by
the Brazilian government as a legitimate organization with
full rights to carryon the activities of preaching the Word
throughout Brazil.
Down through the years until 1947 the Society continued
the fight to establish itself on a legal footing in various
manners. Every effort was blocked. Finally, in 1947, under
the newly form€'l constitution of 1946, the Society quietly
took its proper place as a registered Brazilian corporation
known as A Socicdade T01-re de Yigia de Biblias e Tratado8.
Then Catholic Action stepped in and acted. A lady director
let go against the Societ:;. She inSinuated, "But, according to
the information of the police of Sao Paulo and of this
capital, 'there must exist,' really, 'other aims' STILL SOME­
WHAT OBSCURE AND NOT DECLARED. Its unhampered operation,
then, could come to constitute, in the future, a
problem of difficult and troublesome solution, in view of
its hiding its true designs .... " She induced the president
of the republic and the minister of justice to decree Its
suspension as "being dangerous to the public welfare and
to the safety of the State and of the collectivity, to the
public and social order, to morals and to good manners".
Just two months after the pope hung a medal around the
minister of justice's neck in Rome, he hung a millstone
about ours in Brazil. He suspended the Society for six
months. But the preaching still goes on!
Despite the hardships of preaching the Word that backward
Brazil presents, both in injustice meted out by its
leaders and the physical hardships encountered in taking
the message to out-of-the-way places, the publishers continue
to be added to daily. The Brazilian ministers realize
that there is much work to be done yet to reach the more
than 50 million people scattered throughout a country
larger than the continental United States. They show much
zeal and perseverance in preaching. Despite hardships, in-