Cult killings spark riots

21.02.23: A MASS GRAVE containing the bodies of 527 men, women and children was unearthed yesterday on the outskirts of São Paulo in Brazil.

Forensic experts are not yet able to confirm when or how they died.

All were members of the Brothers of the Burning Bush, the evangelical church founded in 2005 by the infamous demagogue Addis Gabriel Adaba.

Like many evangelical churches in Latin America, the BBB had lost many followers in recent years, as lapsed Catholics responded to the new Pope's dramatic reforms by returning to their mother church. Amid speculation on what motivated the killings, many believe that panic over these events turned Adaba into a mass murderer. He has not been seen since January 2022, and neither, for that matter, have 5,000 of his former disciples. Their relatives are now sure they are buried elsewhere in the area.

Their fury has spilled over into the streets of São Paulo, where angry mobs burned other charismatic churches.

Sister Maria de Fatima, Brazil's most outspoken religious activist, pointed out that Gabriel Adaba's road required his women to become virtual slaves. He had cracked when too many of them rebelled.

'This had nothing to do with God. It was a last-ditch effort to save male privilege,' she said. MF