Resumen:
This research aims to investigate the controversy between the ethical-philosophical debate about animal rights and the sacredness of animals in Afro-religious rituals, with the aim of understanding and relating (i) the tripod: secularity, freedom of conscience and freedom of belief; (ii) the possibility of sacrifice from an ethical-philosophical point of view; (iii) the relations of the Brazilian State with Afro-Brazilian religions and their asymmetries; (iv) the “place” of racism, coloniality and knowledge in religious cosmological needs. Based on these questions and the legal history that involves the issue of animal sacralization, the purpose is to produce an analytical space that produces an understanding of the controversy over the debate on the ecological cause, in which the theme of animal protection is inserted, as well as, about respect for religious cosmologies and experiences of the sacred to contribute so that, from an ethical-philosophical and theological point of view, the debate on the animal cause is not made unviable and, on the other hand, no theological knowledge is produced that makes other religious expressions, their realities and processes unfeasible or not respected.