Brazil's most prolific allegedspiritual healeris now its most prolific convicted rapist, and the woman who made him famous on prime-time television has barely said a word about it since.
João Teixeira de Faria, the self-proclaimed medium who built a global spiritual empire from a small town in central Brazil, has accumulated criminal sentences totalling 489 years and four months in prison.
The figure is the result of multiple successive verdicts handed down by the courts of the state of Goiás across several years. The case has forced an uncomfortable reckoning not only with Brazil's faith-healing industry, but with the Western celebrities and media outlets that gave it an international audience.
On 15 September 2023, Goiás state criminal court Judge Marcos Boechatsentenced Fariato 118 years, six months and 15 days in prison. The ruling grouped 17 cases against Faria, covering charges of rape, rape via fraud, and rape of a vulnerable individual, according to the Goiás court's official statement, as reported by Agence France-Presse. That sentence alone would keep a man behind bars for longer than the average human lifespan, yet it was not even his first conviction.
The Goiás courts had first found Faria guilty of rape in December 2019, handing down a sentence of 19 years and four months for the sexual assault of four women. A month into 2020, a second guilty verdict added another 40 years for five additional victims. Further sentences for sexual crimes followed, and a separate conviction for illegal firearms possession was also recorded.
Brazilian healer John of God, promoted by Oprah Winfrey as an inspiring figure of spiritual miracles, sentenced to 118 years in prison for sexual rapeshttps://t.co/C24IBpyqIE
By the time the September 2023 ruling arrived, the cumulative total had surpassed 489 years and four months. Brazilian law, however, caps the actual time any individual serves at 40 years, meaning Faria, born on 24 June 1942, will in practice spend the remainder of his life in custody.
Faria has consistently denied all allegations. His press office issued a statement in the early days of the scandal declaring that he 'vehemently denies having committed any inappropriate behaviour during his treatments,'according to NBC News, which cited a statement to Brazil's G1 news portal. He has not issued any public response to the subsequent convictions.
Faria operated out of Abadiânia, a town of roughly 15,000 people located around 120 kilometres south-west of Brasília. His centre, theCasa de Dom Inácio de Loyola, attracted tens of thousands of visitors a month at the height of his fame, among them people who had exhausted conventional medical options and travelled from across South America, Europe and North America seeking cures.
He offered what he called 'visible' and 'invisible' surgeries, the former involving physical interventions such as nasal probing and eye scrapings, carried out without anaesthesia or any medical qualification.
Source: International Business Times UK
