March 25, 2005

Padre Cicero, Rehabilitated?

The statue of Padre Cicero Romão Batista, which stands in Juazeiro do Norte, and is the focal-point of worship for thousands of Brazilians

The part of Brazil where we will serve upon our arrival does not get much worldwide press. It is a semi-arid region, characterized by small towns and a largely rural lifestyle.

It is also characterized by fanatic Roman Catholicism, dominated by the veneration of a certain Padre Cicero Romão Batista.

I was quite surprised to open up my feed reader this morning and find an article from no less a source than the New York Times about the movement to cannonize Padre Cicero.

I have included the entire article below, but I wanted to extract a couple paragraphs from it and comment on them.

Each year, some two million pilgrims visit the sites and shrines associated with Father Cicero here in the heart of Brazil's arid northeastern backlands.

These pilgrimages provide some of the greatest opportunities for evangelism that we have in northeastern Brazil. God, in His sovereignty, is using the intense idolotry of the region to bring people to Him and glory to His name. Other pieces I have done about this event can be found here, here, and here.

But the veneration of Father Cicero is more than just a religious phenomenon. Barred from his priestly duties, he turned to politics. He became the first mayor of this city, which today calls itself "The Capital of Faith," and later was chosen lieutenant governor of his home state and elected to Congress, though he never served in either post.

Another name for the city is "Capital of Idolotry."

"Thanks to the pilgrims and their faith, the evangelical churches are not making many inroads here," Bishop Panico said. "Father Cicero is like an antivirus."

Either Bishop Panico has his head in the sand, or else he is deliberately misrepresented the facts. Consider the following:

1. Our missionaries have been in Juazeiro do Norte since shortly after Padre Cicero died. The "virus" there has grown to the point where there are several new church plants there each year.

2. Every year for the last several years successful evangelistic campaigns have been carried out among the pilgrims.

3. The Cariri Baptist Seminary--which started in Juazeiro do Norte, and now makes its home in Crato, Padre Cicero's hometown--brings students to the region from all over Brazil for ministry training, and then sends them throughout the country to minister. For a look at this year's student body, click here.

4. The Source of Light ministry in Brazil has its headquarters at the Seminary, and has a nationwide and international reach.

5. Off the top of my head, I can think of 14 Regular Baptist churches in the three towns that make up the Cariri Valley--Padre Cicero's center of influence. And this does not include all the churches in the small, outlying villages, nor does it include all the other churches of different denominations that preach the gospel in that area.

While the influence of Padre Cicero's particular brand of fanatical Roman Catholicism is still quite strong, the "virus" of the true Gospel is indeed making serious inroads, and at an ever quickening pace.

In the Backlands of Brazil, a Stony Path to Sainthood By LARRY ROHTER

Published: March 25, 2005

JUAZEIRO DO NORTE, Brazil, March 24 - At Mass here one day in 1889, a woman receiving communion declared that the Host had turned to blood in her mouth. Though local people thought it a miracle, the Roman Catholic Church was not pleased, and eventually suspended the Rev. Cicero Romão Batista, the priest involved, from his duties.

But Father Cicero's fame as a miracle worker continued to spread, so much so that today people all over Brazil, the country with the largest Roman Catholic population in the world, believe him to be a saint. Now, to the joy of the followers who flock here each year during Holy Week, on his March 24 birthday and on other salient dates, the same ecclesiastical hierarchy that shunned and persecuted their beloved "Spiritual Guide and Intermediary" is finally moving to rehabilitate him.

"Father Cicero was a controversial figure whose actions unsettled a lot of people, as the actions of all prophets do," said Fernando Panico, the Roman Catholic bishop here since 2001. "But we cannot deny he always remained faithful to the church despite his suffering, nor can we remain indifferent to the symbolic expression of faith that he represents for the people."

Each year, some two million pilgrims visit the sites and shrines associated with Father Cicero here in the heart of Brazil's arid northeastern backlands. There is the chapel where he is buried, the house where he died, the church where he was once a parish priest, a museum and, looming high atop a mountainside over this city of 225,000, an 80-foot alabaster statue of him, his distinctive flat-brimmed hat and walking stick in hand.

Encouraged by the church's change of attitude, Father Cicero's disciples are hoping that he can quickly be beatified and canonized. Bishop Panico said that "good will seems to exist in Rome," but also talked of a long and complicated process.

Whenever that process begins, Father Cicero's followers are confident they will have no shortage of miracles to support their cause. At the "House of Miracles" here, the floor is piled high with wood, plastic and wax models of arms, legs, hands, feet, heads and thoraxes, left by pilgrims who credit Father Cicero for their startling recoveries from fatal diseases and accidents.

There are also photographs and letters of gratitude, many written in the shaky penmanship of the unschooled. But other testimonials thank Father Cicero for victories in lawsuits or for being awarded university degrees, and a well-known pop singer has left a memento crediting the priest's intercession with allowing him to score a comeback hit record and survive a car crash.

Local people say that even Bishop Panico has benefited from Father Cicero's healing powers. When the bishop announced a couple of years ago that he had cancer, pilgrims began a campaign of prayer for his recovery. He is now in remission, and while he was hesitant to talk of a miracle, others were not.

"Father Cicero is a prophet, a saint, a divine being who has the power to bestow innumerable graces on those who have faith in him," said Maria Pereira Cordeiro, a 64-year-old retiree. "I'm not a lettered person, but I think that God sent Dom Fernando to help the church recognize Father Cicero's greatness."

But the veneration of Father Cicero is more than just a religious phenomenon. Barred from his priestly duties, he turned to politics. He became the first mayor of this city, which today calls itself "The Capital of Faith," and later was chosen lieutenant governor of his home state and elected to Congress, though he never served in either post.

He died on July 20, 1934, at 90. "Among the lower classes, there was the sensation that Father Cicero would soon return with the declaration of the millennium and the liberation of the poor," said Ralph della Cava, author of the leading work in English on Father Cicero and an expert on popular religiosity in Brazil.

With time, that sentiment has passed, replaced "by a sense that Father Cicero is as much a miracle worker or intermediary before the Godhead as any of the legitimate saints of the church," added Dr. della Cava, a senior research associate at the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.

While the Roman Catholic Church continued to be skittish about embracing Father Cicero and his legacy, others were not. For years, any politician running for national or state office has had to make a stop in Juazeiro do Norte; some candidates and elected officials even pay for the chartered buses and overcrowded trucks, known as "parrot perches," that bring pilgrims here.

One factor in the church's recent turnabout may be that the army of pilgrims is simply too powerful a spiritual force to ignore. When fundamentalist Protestant denominations are challenging the Roman Catholic Church's dominance all over Brazil, it makes more sense to view Father Cicero's devotees as allies, rather than fanatics or schismatics.

"Thanks to the pilgrims and their faith, the evangelical churches are not making many inroads here," Bishop Panico said. "Father Cicero is like an antivirus."

Manoel de Lima Sousa, pastor of an Assembly of God church that is within sight of the giant statue, acknowledged that it had been more difficult to convert Catholics in this region than in other parts of Brazil. He described Father Cicero as "a great man whose memory deserves respect and who did many admirable things for the people," but also said that evangelical groups could not in good faith accept the cult that had grown up around him.

A few traditional local families offended by Father Cicero's zeal for defending the poor also continue to express doubts about his rehabilitation. But there seems to be no way to stop yet another miracle in Juazeiro.

"The church waited 500 years to acknowledge that it had made a mistake in condemning Galileo," said André Herzog Cardoso, rector of the Cariri Regional University here. "I don't think it is going to commit the same error this time. It's a question of survival."

Posted by Andrew on March 25, 2005 11:56 AM.