Pilgrimage for profit

CANINDE, Brazil — For miles around, you see nothing but Brazilian sertao: scrub, desert, vultures and a blistering heat that is hard to overestimate.

Then you descend into chaos.

Caninde, at first glance, seems a bit like a religious Brazilian version of Las Vegas this time of year. But turn the temperature up a few degrees, substitute gambling for churches, and add in a few hundred thousand northeast Brazilian pilgrims dressed like saints.

For the rest of the year, Caninde is quietly nestled within the sparsely populated, largely impoverished northeastern interior.

For 10 days in late September and early October, it becomes the prime destination for 1 million northeasterners seeking to pay homage to St. Francis of Assisi, the Italian saint who, 800 years ago, eschewed all earthly possessions to live in poverty.

Brazilians traditionally make the pilgrimage to Caninde to make a votive, or promise, to St. Francis. Some come to pray for miracles while others come to attest, or give thanks for, a miracle granted, often having to do with a physical or mental ailment.

Many such pilgrims, called romeros, dress in dark brown robes tied with a loose-fitting rope belt, in the style of and in solidarity with St. Francis.

The relatively small city lies in a dried-up valley, flanked by a small, pink church perched atop a hill and a skyscraper-sized metal statue of St. Francis.

Pilgrims head to several spiritual focal points within Caninde. At the House of Miracles, wooden limbs and sun-bleached layers of tattered Polaroids of families and faces line the walls: stories are told of pilgrims past, of miracles both desired and granted.

In between Mass and shopping, pilgrims head to the Gruta, a grotto that spews out water believed to be blessed by St. Francis. At any given time throughout the celebration, a veritable stampede surrounds the Gruta, filled with people hoping to harness a bit of Francis for their homes.

Then there’s the central church, raised to basilica status by the Catholic church, impressive in its architecture and the moving frescoes within.

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