RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The new Brazilian Minister of Education, attorney and Presbyterian pastor Milton Ribeiro, said in 2018 that existentialist philosophy is taught in universities and encourages a “completely limitless practice of sex”. A video shows Ribeiro speaking to the evangelical community on the subject during a service.
“To contribute further in negative terms to an entirely limitless sex practice the philosophical question of existentialism emerged, in which only the moment matters. It does not matter if it is A, or B, if it is a man or a woman, if it is the one, if it is old, or young. It doesn’t matter. What matters is the moment,” he declared on the recording. Ribeiro adds that “that’s what they are teaching our children at university.”
When asked about the video, the Ministry of Education (MEC) did not comment until this article was published. The recording was reported by Metrópoles website on Saturday, July 11th. However, the original post was deleted by the account where it was initially published, the ‘Meditando na Sã Doutrina’ channel. In his statement, the head of MEC also contextualizes by saying that from the 60s on there was “greater freedom in this sexual aspect”, with the invention of the morning-after pill.
“The world has been losing reference to what is right and wrong in terms of sexual behavior. And this has created many challenges because now unwanted pregnancy is no longer a risk,” he said.
Other old statements by the pastor have already come to light since his appointment as Minister on Friday, July 10th. Estadão newspaper revealed that Milton Ribeiro has in the past advocated educating children “with pain”. In a video published four years ago by the Presbyterian Church Jardim de Oração, the pastor tells the faithful that “there must be rigor and severity” in the education of children. The video with this statement has also been deleted.
The church of which Ribeiro is head pastor celebrated his appointment to the MEC. A text published in the Presbyterian Church’s special bulletin reported that the appointment was welcomed “as the work of God and not of man”.
President Jair Bolsonaro’s choice of Milton Ribeiro came after an unofficial tug of war to decide who would take the MEC chair after Abraham Weintraub stepped down. The government faced a deadlock in defining the ex-Minister’s replacement, known for controversial statements such as calling for the arrest of the Supreme Court’s “thugs” and ironizing the accent of the Chinese.
The decision became even more sensitive after the first appointee, Carlos Alberto Decotelli, resigned before taking office, after inconsistencies found in his résumé. The Ministry position was also publicly rejected by Renato Feder, the current Secretary of Education of Paraná.
Source: Estadão Conteúdo