Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (289 page)

miracle?

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Here are only two absurd examples from the records: As Miss Cecilia Augusta Goveia Trestes of Torres Novas had been suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, peritonitis and dropsy for years, her family, correctly assessing the situation, had already ordered a coffin for her. Although the doctors could do nothing, Miss Trestes was taken to Fatima on 13th July, 1923.

Nothing happened at the miracle shrine. However, on the way home Miss Trestes, who normally had hardly any appetite, became as hungry as a hunter. She greedily gulped down her attendants'

provisions. After half an hour's pause for digestion, the taciturn Cecilia Augusta grew loquacious and even began to laugh and sing. A week later she was better [10].

Whether this surprising change was provoked by a type of euphoria well-known in medicine, the sudden subjective sense of well-being of severely ill patients - and all the signs point to it - is not stated in the records, nor when or where she finally got rid of her ailments.

A thirty-year-old man from Camara de Lobos on the island of Madeira was a chronic alcoholic.

Doctors prophesied that he would certainly get cirrhosis of the liver with a fatal outcome. The young man went on carefully boozing his bottle of spirits a day. Then his religious wife took a hand. She mixed a few drops of Fatima water with his daily ration of spirits. Wonder of wonders, from that moment alcohol repelled the former drunkard. He lived to the age of seventy [11].

'Cures' of this sort are always unverifiable, yet they obstinately assert themselves in the fairytale literature of miracles. The relevant people whom one could question have long since died - relatives, flattered by having a miraculous cure in the family nod sagely: yes, yes, that's the story told about the dead man ... The round figure of 1,500 supposed cures has been recorded at Fatima since 1940. As at Lourdes, the Medical Commission has only recognized a comparatively small number of 'cures' and here too, the ratio of cures is women 70: 30 men. What is the reason for that? Do women pray more frequently? Or do Eve's daughters contribute more (imaginary) illnesses, confirmed by desperate doctors unable to find anything concrete, to the Madonna?

Let me make it clear that exceptional cures at the scene of visions are not denied. But let me also make it clear that as members of the Holy Family are not the cause of the visions, neither can they be the cause of the miraculous cures which indeed happen by virtue of visions.