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Repercussions of the raffle in a parish in Florianópolis raise questions about transparency after a priest was announced as the winner of the main prize and the decision to redo the process mobilized parishioners and social networks.
The Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, in Canasvieiras, in the North of the Island, in Florianópolis, became the target of debate on social media after Father Eduardo Cardozo de Senna was drawn as the winner of the main prize of a raffle promoted by the community itself: a Fiat Argo 0 km.
After the repercussions of the case, the pastor informed that the raffle would be redone on Thursday, April 9, without the participation of the tickets purchased by him.
The episode occurred on Sunday, April 5, during the so-called “Action Among Friends,” an initiative created to raise funds for the renovation of five communities linked to the parish.
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A video that began circulating on social media shows the moment when volunteers throw the tickets into the air and the priest catches one of them mid-air.
Then, upon checking the paper, he says: “You won’t believe it. It’s blank, it’s mine,” while people present react with laughter.
Raffle in a church in SC generates repercussions on social media
Before the winning ticket was drawn, the priest himself had already informed that he had also purchased numbers and that some were without nominal identification.
This detail concentrated much of the criticism made by internet users, who questioned the way the raffle was conducted and the participation of those organizing the action.
In the posts that echoed the case, users raised doubts about the transparency of the procedure, although the video also records that the pastor immediately recognized that the drawn ticket was his.
Decision to redo the raffle after criticism
With the circulation of the images, the case gained national dimension and began to be reproduced by different profiles and media outlets.
The negative reaction focused less on the fact that the priest had bought tickets and more on the embarrassment generated by the result, since the main prize ended up going to the person who was leading the charitable campaign.
In light of this scenario, Eduardo Senna published a video to affirm that he understood the doubts raised and announced the holding of a new raffle.
In the recording released after the controversy, the pastor stated that the tickets purchased by him would be removed from the new round.
He also said that the car would not remain in his possession and that, from the beginning, the intention was to keep the benefit for the parish itself.
Justifying the decision, he declared: “I understand, I completely understand. This car would not be for me. This car would be for the parish, but I understand the doubts.”
The new drawing, according to the priest himself, would take place during the Mass of the Untangler, scheduled for the evening of April 9.
The measure was announced as a direct response to the wear caused by the first raffle.
In the public manifestations that followed, some parishioners defended the pastor and maintained that everything had occurred openly, as he had previously warned about his participation.
Still, the repercussions showed that the declared transparency was not enough to avoid questions about the credibility of the adopted dynamics.
Who is the priest involved in the case in Florianópolis
Eduardo Cardozo de Senna has been the pastor of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish since January 19, 2025, according to the record from the Archdiocese of Florianópolis.
The biography published by the archdiocese states that he was born in Urubici, Santa Catarina, was ordained a deacon on December 16, 2017, and a priest on June 23, 2018.
The institutional profile also points to his previous work in other parishes and in the metropolitan seminary.
This context helps explain why the repercussions went beyond the local sphere.
As the campaign was linked to works in five communities in the region, the expectation was that the raffle would serve only as a fundraising instrument, without generating any noise about favoritism, even when unintentional.
The result, however, produced the opposite effect and shifted the debate to the integrity of the adopted mechanics, especially since the winning ticket was drawn amid the papers thrown into the air, in a makeshift and highly exposed procedure to public perception.
Until the widespread repercussions of the case, there were no public details about the value of the tickets or about the other prizes linked to the campaign.
There was also no formal position from the Archdiocese of Florianópolis regarding the episode beyond the institutional identification of the priest and his connection to the parish.
This led most of the discussion to focus on the videos and statements from the pastor himself after the controversy.
The sequence of events shows that the crisis did not arise from a formal accusation of proven fraud, but from the impact of a scene that, in itself, fueled distrust and public wear.
In a charitable action linked to a church, the perception of impartiality often weighs as much as the regularity of the procedure.
It was precisely this difference between what occurred in front of the parishioners and the subsequent reading made on social media that led to the retreat and the scheduling of a new raffle, now without the priest’s tickets among the competitors.
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