Teenager Believed to Heal Sick

Updated:2005-05-26 10:20:39.864

PAREDON, Mex. -- They say she can cure the sick. NEWSCHANNEL 5 travelled deep into Mexico to find out more about "La Santita."

PAREDON, Mex. -- Four hours south of the Rio Grande lives a girl people call la Santita.

Adrianna Perez is 13 years old. I have had this power since birth,” she said in Spanish.

People say she can heal the sick. They travel from as far as Chicago to Paredon, Mex., to visit the girl. Paredon does not look out of the ordinary. A little lost in time perhaps, with its adobe huts and donkeys. But something happens there every Monday and Friday that some say is extraordinary.

The sick and handicapped come looking for la Santita. They gather outside her door to pray. They are surrounded by statues of saints and images of Christ and the Virgin Mary. But it's the young girl they believe can heal them. Pedro Zamora came in search of a miracle. He traveled nine hours from Uvalde, Texas. He has diabetes and problems with his foot. He hopes la Santita can help. I have an ulcer,” Zamora said. “There is a bone I need to have taken out. That is what is doing the damage. Every time I walk, the bone sticks out, and it cuts my foot.”

Another woman said her baby has brain tumor. She took the child to la Santita. The young healer calls it an operation, even though there is no blood. She used glass to trace a path along the baby's head. It's a spiritual incision, she says, followed by symbolic bandages for healing. Why do I do this...because I like it...that's the only reason,” Perez said. Adrianna's mother said it began when her daughter received her own miracle. She got sick with leukemia,” said Maria Perez. “The curanderos operated on her. They extracted some of her blood into a bottle. She survived, because of them.” I don't charge anything, because God sent me here to help the people. Not to take away their money like others,” Perez said. At the end of the day, Perez said she transforms back into a teenager. She appears to choke, fall, and her mother catches her. Perez said el nino Fidencio was leaving her body. The folk saint she spoke is said to have cured thousands in northern Mexico in the 1930s.

Tony Zavaleta, an anthropologist and researcher with the University of Texas in Brownsville said he has studied such healers for more than 20 years. In Spanish we call them ‘materias', or medians, or tran-medians,” Zavaleta said, “and...the spirit of Fidencio would take possession of their bodies, and speak through them, and continue his healing.”

Zavaleta said those who believe the girl can heal essentially believe she is possessed by Fidencio. The little girl was not using the glass. El nino Fidencio is using the glass through the little girl,” Zavaleta explained. Father Robert Maher of the Brownsville Diocese said the belief in healing involves superstition.

This enters the realm of superstition, which is beyond the tenants of our faith,” Maher said. “So that would give us to express concern. There might be something not godly here," Maher warned. We have to be careful in issues with the spirit, because we believe in the reality of Satan...and Satan is the father of lies and deception.”

But Pedro Zamora, the diabetic, claims he is better now. “I feel great,” Zamora said. “I can now go back to Uvalde. ”Adrianna said she plans to use her gift of healing until she dies. “It gives me happiness, because I am helping people,” she said. La Santita's village is not easy to find. But people who have made the journey say it is worth the effort.

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