human gargoyles on catholic church

Porto Alegre Cathedral

I live two blocks away from the Porto Alegre cathedral, I see it every day walking my dog. It’s not an impressive building but locals are very proud of their cathedral.  It was built in 1920, so it’s a rather recent building for a Catholic church. I took these pictures Easter Sunday morning.  The façade is decorated with several gold inlaid mosaics and the building looks as one would expect such a building to look, and I’m used to seeing it there.  But you can’t build a Catholic church without gargoyles, especially not a cathedral, so you look for the gargoyles.

POA Cathedral gargoyle

Gargoyle on Catholic Church

You find them on the side of the church. Yes those are Indians, the gargoyles on the Porto Alegre cathedral are not the monstrous, nightmarish mythical creatures one usually sees on such edifices, they are people.  Native Brazilian, or as the church would have you see them, heathens looking menacing and holding fast to the edge of their rocky outcrop, ready to pounce on the god fearing innocent passerby. The Indian gargoyles are snarling, their faces painted ready to wage war on the good Catholic people of the city. That is how the church would have the local population see the native inhabitants of the land. 

 I expect the Catholic church to practice social exclusion of those who do not contribute to the church’s coffers, and it has historically excluded native populations in Latin America.  But this is the ultimate social exclusion of an entire population, carved in stone, and since there was/is no separation of church and state, this state sponsored prejudice.

Native population begging

The message is clear:  shun the native population, keep them out of your society, they are dangerous, menacing heathens who will attack you as soon as look at you.  The propaganda worked, today the native population is relegated to begging for alms at the door of that same cathedral on Easter morning.



And once again I’m the only one bothered by this. Everyone thinks the cathedral is beautiful. Tourists stop to photograph it every day, it’s one of the city’s pride and joys. There are no picket signs, protests or general outrage. Human gargoyles and an impoverished, subjugated native population is fine and normal for the church, the state and the population of Porto Alegre.

a bit of hypocrisy from the Catholic Church

 Oh, and by the way, in modern times the menacing human gargoyles weren’t enough to keep all the riff raff out of the house of god, so they installed an electric fence.  I mean, really, it’s the house of god after all, we can’t just let anybody in.