Miracle at Joaseiro

Miracle at Joaseiro is the political history of a popular religious movement which flourished between 1889 and 1934 in the hinterlands of Brazil's impoverished Northeast. The movement was sparked by a reputed miracle. On 1 March 1889, Padre Cicero Romao Batista, the devout Roman Catholic chaplain of the backland hamlet of Joaseiro, administered communion to a pious young woman. Within moments, the white host was transformed into blood that contemporary observers and subsequent believers contended was the blood of Jesus Christ shed again to redeem mankind. This collective belief became the foundation-stone of a popular religious movement that defied both church and state, while Padre Cicero, twice excommunicated by the Holy Roman Inquisition and denounced as a subversive by political authorities, was transfigured into a living folk-hero by the oppressed rural masses of the Brazilian Northeast. Equally remarkable was the later transformation of the Joaseiro movement into a major force in Northeastern politics and of Padre Cicero into one of the most powerful political figures in the region's history. In recording the movement's past, Professor della Cava interviewed many prominent inhabitants of Joaseiro and was the first scholar to rely extensively on two important archival sources: the one, Padre Cicero's extant personal, lifetime correspondence; the other, the ecclesiastical archives of the Diocese of Crato, the chief record of the movement - as perceived by the church hierarchy - from 1889 until 1900. Extraordinary photographs, a number of which date from that period, illustrate the events which the author spent several years in tracking down and verifying. In this study, Professor della Cava demonstrates a remarkable capacity for uncovering and analyzing the intricate web of relationships which simultaneously linked the fortunes of Joaseiro to the political forces at play on the local, regional and national levels of Brazilian society.