In early September, Gudmer Cabello published claims of a miracle in Lima, Peru. Cabello is a Catholic priest in the parish of Our Lady of Mercedes, Barrios Altos, a district of Lima. Two public transportation mini-buses collided on Sunday, 29 August. One of them hit an external wall of the Provincial House of the Religious Mercedarias, a few metres from an image of the Lord of Column, where some children had stopped to pray. A pious woman showed the priest photographs taken five years before the supposed miracle, supposedly showing that the image’s arms had moved to “save” the children.
Other photographs clearly demonstrated that there was no miraculous change in position of the arms of the kneeling Christ in the icon. According to sociologist Nelson Manrique, this was probably a psychosocial operation mounted by the present government intended to misinform and distract public opinion. It is well known that the former Fujimori government used similar psychosocial tactics in the 1990’s.
[i]CIPSA-PERU[/i]