Here you truly believe that God is visible
1 pm on Friday 11th August in Lima. Doris Manco, head of our media centre, and I had just left the presidential palace having discussed with representatives the possibility of the President’s visit and were now standing in front of the Caretas’ – a Peruvian daily newspaper – building. For seventy years it has been an instrument of left-wing investigative journalism. At the reception desk we asked if we could personally issue an invitation to Marco Zileri. An impossible request. We had made no appointment. We had never met him and at a guess he was just out of the office grabbing a bite to eat. But, lo and behold, we were granted “three minutes”. A lift took us up to the fifth floor.
Marco Zileri, tall, with keen eyes, waved us in and offered us to sit down on his couch. “Do you have a moment for us?” I asked the man who through his articles has brought a number of politicians and criminals behind bars. Ten seconds after he nodded his assent my laptop was showing the first of the 150 slides of my Diospi Suyana presentation. Initially Zileri did not quite know what had hit him and looked in amazement at my dusty screen; but was soon taking notes.
“And I have always been an atheist,” he exclaimed when the last slide ‘God became visible’ appeared on the screen.
Three weeks later Marco Zileri came to Curahuasi accompanied by a photographer. During the 48 hours he spent at the missionary hospital he asked at least 1,000 questions. He heard the President’s address at the 10th anniversary celebration, spoke to many missionaries and interviewed patients sitting in the waiting room. He published his findings on six pages of Caretas.
His first heading is “Here you truly believe that God is visible!” The long text starts as follows: “In Apurimac the idea that God not only exists, but has become visible, has won the day. On 31st August our President himself travelled to the site in order to understand this phenomenon!”
A literal translation of the title of the next two pages is: “You have to have seen it in order to believe it!” Marco writes: “The hospital (Diospi Suyana) fills a huge void in the region’s health care services. From all over patients Peru come here for treatment!”
In his last paragraph this great mind concludes: “Catholics and Protestants, Jews and atheists work together selflessly in order to help this hospital. Then he quotes me: “We have fought with our doubts. We want to see Christ in our lives and do not want to believe in something vague. This is what keeps us going from day to day, from year to year. In the night before the anniversary we prayed like billy-o. The battle continues!“ /KDJ
