The dioceses of Brasilia and Toronto signed a covenant for a seven-year partnership in July 2025. The genesis of this relationship started a few years earlier. Bishop Mauricio Andrade was invited to the diocesan Synod in November 2024, and it was there that this partnership project was first announced. Since then, several monthly Zoom meetings have built a road to dream and learn together.
In July 2026, the first delegation from the Diocese of Toronto visited our sister Diocese of Brasilia. It was winter, but the temperature was between 26 to 28 degrees! Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil, is a futuristic city that is only 66 years old. Brasilia was planned and designed by Oscar Niemeyer. This city is clean, neat, minimalist and even galactical. It was made for government bureaucrats, politicians and diplomats. The city has a population of 3.5 million people, but it is so spacious that there are no traffic jams. Huge and wide avenues where you cannot even see people, cars or public transportation. The city displays another reality outside of the urban ring designed by Niemeyer.
The Cathedral Church of the Resurrection is located in the city core, but the diocese has a strong presence with parish life and social programs in the surrounding struggling neighbourhoods. In Novo Gama and Paranoa, you have Parish Espirito Santo, Parish Santissima Trinidade and Centro Social Anglicano. There we found the heart of this immaculate capital city. In the parishes, we met the hard-working people who earn small salaries by going to work in the city. Their families need support, and the Church is ready to help with serving lunches to children at the community centre, food transported to the homeless and spiritual support for poor people who are rich in faith. To witness the work and to interact with the community is a transforming experience, and it gave us a new admiration for the commitment of the Diocese of Brasilia.
We traveled to Goiana, a city of 2.8 million located 208 km northwest of Brasilia that is also part of the diocese. We went to Paroquia San Felipe, a small property adapted to worship and serving the community. This is another impressive ministry of people with strong commitment but no financial resources to build an actual house for HIV/AIDS patients undergoing treatment. Once again, their leaders and community working in faith is inspirational. The humble property is in poor shape, but it has an altar, bibles, liturgical texts, old furniture and candles. People’s faces radiant with joy and hope working and connecting with neighbours, politicians, students, anti-racism movements, ecumenical and inter-faith relationships.
To describe the Diocese of Brasilia is complex because it is huge in geographical extension, a very young diocese and deeply impactful for people from marginalized backgrounds. It is small in human resources and small in budget. How to understand their ministry? The only answer is that their strong faith moves the church ahead. A diocese committed to marginalized people, the LGBTQ+ community, the HIV/AIDS community, immigrants, the displaced, the poor, women, children and environmental issues. It is a diocese with a prophetic voice, a message of liberation and inclusion. It was in this context that I was installed as an honorary canon to the Diocese of Brasilia on July 19, in recognition of 28 years working in the ministry for Portuguese-speaking people in the Diocese of Toronto and for working to build bridges between Brazil and Canada.
Their small team of clergy and lay people highly visible to the people, communities, government, national and international networks. They act with efficiency as the proclaimers of the transforming and liberating gospel. A strong mission and vision is key, and its bishop, clergy and lay people know that with conviction.
During this visit, we were not just exploring and discovering the social challenges of a city and a nation, but we found joy in the great warm hospitality, dancing samba, food, caipirinha (national cocktail), the beauty of the nature (we were lucky to see capybaras) and the great architecture and art in their iconic buildings. We have to wait for the next trip to try the famous piranha soup delicacy from Mato Grosso. It was a greatly transforming trip that opened our eyes and minds to understand that the partnership between Brasilia and Toronto is not an accident, but a blessing for our journeys and pilgrimages.
See also: Brasilia trip reveals resilient faith
I get to time travel every day