On the power of Christian compassion: Cabo Daciolo, David Miranda and Glenn Greenwald.
I like to read a variety of blogs from both sides of politics, just in case there’s something I might miss, some wisdom or fact, and one journalist whose substack I read is Glenn Greenwald; he is very much a leftist commentator who supports LGBT issues and Joe Biden, etc.
I came across this inspirational story in Glenn Greenwald’s substack today.
Cabo Daciolo is a famous Brazilian firefighter, union leader, evangelical and ex-Congressman.
In 2011, when he led a firefighters' strike for the union of Rio di Janiero demanding better pay, conditions, benefits and worker protections, Cabo Daciolo was embraced by the left. Being a photogenic, handsome figure, very good at public speaking, he elicited a lot of public sympathy.
Diacolo was elected to the national Congress in 2014 for the leftist party PSOL and won, and was celebrated by the left.
Two events changed his favour in the eyes of the left-wing PSOL: firstly due to Diacolo being an evangelical Christian, Daciolo remained steadfastly opposed to same-sex marriage and the legalisation of abortion. Secondly he supported an amendment to the constitution of Brazil that included the words “all power emanates from God.”
This was the last straw. Whilst still a Congressman he was expelled from PSOL and joined a different party, PDT.
Daciolo in the eyes of the left was and still is vilified for ‘hating LGBT people.’
Daciolo eventually did a run for President in 2018, and managed to win over a million votes, more than the more well financed Presidential runs.
But as the 2022 election approached it was clear he would not be able to mount a viable campaign, so he supported another candidate, Ciro Gomes.
During this period, Cabo Daciolo became friends with David Miranda, a fellow congressman in the same party PDT who supported the same candidate.
When David Miranda became sick earlier this year, Cabo Daciolo visited him in hospital.
The thing is, David Miranda is gay and is married to journalist Glenn Greenwald. In his substack Glenn Greenwald wrote about Cabo Daciolo’s visits to David in hospital, and it is very clear that Cabo’s kindness made a deep impression on him.
I would like to add just a couple of details to this story that I learned afterward. Because of the complications David endured this week, he has been once again heavily sedated, technically in a medically-induced coma. He does wake up sometimes if you call his name loudly enough, but he usually goes right to back to sleep within seconds. The nurse in David's room told me that when Cabo went there this week to pray with and for David, David remained awake the whole time, and when Cabo left, he expressed to the nurse how happy and moved he was.
Each time Cabo has called me to ask about David, he also conveys messages of support for me and our kids. It is usually an overtly religious message, but it is the opposite of alienating. It expresses the best and most noble sentiments of the Gospels — which I read for the first time at the age of 21, when I was shocked to find how radically different it was from what I had been taught to believe about the New Testament and Christianity and how it often found expression in 1980s political debates from the likes of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. There was nothing evangelizing or mechanical about the Biblical verses he references to me. They resonate deeply with me. He chose them with our family’s fear, suffering and deprivations in mind. They provided great comfort, spiritual connection, and love.
This was the person who I have long heard from the left, and still hear, is driven by hatred, especially for LGBTs and our families. I have a lot more to say about all of this and maybe someday I will return to it. For now I will just say that a left-wing politics that cannot accommodate or form alliances with or even permit respectful and civil interaction with the Cabo Daciolos of the world is a movement that cannot succeed, and probably is a movement that should not.
“I was sick you visited me” Matthew 25:36
Here is the full story: