Folks, I was in Mexico City on the plaza outside the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe when a young peasant father crawled by me along the rough pavement with an obviously dead infant in his arms, swaddled in a tiny white serape. There were twin tracks of blood behind him from his bleeding knees. He was seeking a miracle. Through the adjacent barred window in the basilica I could hear the coin-sorting machines packaging the money that was pouring into the offering boxes inside. I turned away and wept.
In a St. Louis auditorium I stood in the lobby as paramedics treated a heavy elderly woman who lay in a fetal position on the carpet, white-faced and moaning in agony. Moments before she'd been seized in ecstasy in front of faith healer "Reverend" W. V. Grant, leaping up and down in an adrenalin rush that made her temporarily oblivious to the bone spurs on her arthritic spine that were cutting into her muscle tissues and bringing about internal bleeding. The attendants got her onto two stretchers and into an ambulance. I wept.
Outside an arena in Anaheim, California, my camera crew approached a tiny, thin, Asian boy with twisted legs on worn crutches to ask him if he'd been healed by Peter Popoff, the miracle-worker who he'd told us two hours earlier was "gonna ask Jesus to fix my legs." When he turned toward us, we saw his tear-streaked face and anguished eyes. The cameraman lowered his camera. "I can't do this," he said, and we both turned away and wept.
I've had my share of tears and sleepless nights, wondering what I might do to keep people from chasing this chimera. I had another chance in New York City on January 25th, 2005, and I tried.
I'd like to suggest to the government of Brazil that they shut down this charlatan and stop the victimizing of innocent-but-naïve people from all over the world. The international community can only look in astonishment upon any nation that allows such flummery in the 21st century. I'm well aware that Brazil is far from being the only country plagued by such a burden; here in the USA we have our Benny Hinn, W. V. Grant, Peter Popoff, and many others who perform the same fakery on our citizens. The U.K. is full of similar scams, and all over Europe we find the operators at work.
