Brazil's Bishops' Conference Suggests May 11 Public Holiday Only in São Paulo

Source: O Norte Online. The controversy continues concerning the declaration of May 11 as a national public holiday to coincide with Pope Benedict XVI visit to mark the canonization of Frei Galvão, the first Brazilian saint ever (our story of March 28). After a recent call to downgrade this one-off public holiday, from the list of feriados nacionais, to ponto facultativo (our story of April 10), the Conference of Brazilian Bishops (Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil, or CNBB) has now added its own call for a revocation of the May 11 public holiday, suggesting that it should be limited to the city of São Paulo only. In that statement, the CNBB goes to great lengths to point out that, in any event, this public holiday should be considered in the light of facilitating the city's traffic, rather than as a religious holiday. [Brazil public holidays]

Analysis: This latest declaration of a municipal holiday in São Paulo only, to clear the streets of traffic during the hosting of an international conference, if it came to pass, would be part of a recent trend worldwide, with recent examples such as the Montevideo Iberoamerican Summit (Nov. 2006), the Riyadh Arab Summit (Mar. 2007), and the upcoming Sydney APEC Meeting (Sep. 2007).