250 WOMEN ACCUSE FAMOUS FAITH HEALER OF SEX ABUSE

ABADIANIA, Brazil: For over 40 years, spiritual healer Joao Teixeira de Faria drew people from all over the world to this small city in central Brazil, offering treatment for everything from depression to cancer. His work was both praised. Oprah Winfrey called de Faria “inspiring” while visiting in 2012, and heavily scrutinized. Now, de Faria, who goes by the name “Joao de Deus,” or “John of God,” is in trouble with the law. Since December, more than 250 women, including his daughter have come forward to allege abuse that ranged from being felt up during treatments to rape. The mounting accusations are turning the 77-year-old spiritual guru into Brazil’s first major figure to go down in the “#metoo era,” which has been slow to take off in Latin America’s largest nation, despite myriad problems with gender equality. Meanwhile, the people in Abadiania, about a two-hour drive west from the nation’s capital of Brasilia, are in disbelief. They also fear for their futures without de Faria.