Case file · Apparition / miracle
Frei Damião, the missionary of the sertão
The Italian Capuchin Frei Damião de Bozzano arrived in Brazil in 1931 and spent over sixty years preaching missions across the Northeast. Pilgrims came to regard him as a living saint, and cordel poems credited him with cures and prophecies. He died in Recife in 1997.
1931 CE · -8.05, -34.90 · status: claim
The account
His cause for beatification has been opened, and his tomb in Recife and his statue at Guarabira, Paraíba, are pilgrimage sites.
The sceptical view
The miracle stories circulated mostly in popular verse and oral tradition, not in investigated reports.