From Wikipedia; "The astronaut, along with other contemporary symbols was added in 1992 during restoration work on the "new" cathedral. The person responsible for the restoration, Jeronimo Garcia, reportedly chose an astronaut as a fitting symbol of the twentieth century. According to an article about the restoration (in Portuguese - Click here for Google translation to English), it is a tradition of cathedral builders and restorers to include a contemporary symbol on the building as a means of "signing" their work."

Thanks for the correction on Randi, I was remembering reading about his diagnosis and must have confused myself ;)

Um...I can't get to the the actual link on the randi.org site as it seems to be locked up but....James Randi is dead, how could he be commenting on this case? Granted, this essay may be old and does indeed comment on this type of thing, but you should e clear in your post that James Randi is not commenting on this man in particular.