Queen and Lady of All Creation
• Cults , • Superstitious Folly
Seated in his quarters at the back of the "sanctuary" in San Isidro de Grecia, clothed in black vestments, Prado gives every appearance of being what he claims he is -- a priest.
Only one element seems askew: [Alfredo] Prado's new home is a cult compound, an elongated strip of several acres on which a large house and several outbuildings house a handful of adults and eight or 10 teenage boys.
"I'm here because my Blessed Mother asked me to come," Prado said, referring to the Virgin Mary.
"She chose me to come here, and I'm honored."
That was long before the Oblate Fatherhood stripped him of his clerical authority in 1991, ostensibly for theological differences, but, according to Prado, accompanied by accusations of child molestation. It was long before he was sent to a church pedophile treatment center in New Mexico in 1991, long before he defied the church's orders to enter a retirement home in Missouri last year and long before he found his "calling" more than 1,600 miles from St. Timothy's, in Costa Rica. ...
Here, in the country's Central Valley, deep in the shadow of the Poas Volcano, Prado has found a new home as a "priest" and guest of the Reina y Senora de Todo la Creado.
That sect, whose name translates to "Queen and Lady of All Creation," was formed as an obscure group in 2000 by a self-styled visionary, Juan Pablo Delgado. ...
Delgado, a 25-year-old who claims to receive and relay messages from the Virgin Mary, had previously been aligned with a group with a similar name in Heredia, a colonial town just north of of San Jose.
Both groups exalt "the Virgin," a saint who occupies a special position throughout heavily Catholic Central America. That position is even more exalted in Costa Rica, where Mary is the country's patron saint. ...
It was in that social climate that Delgado and the Heredia group's founder, Eugenio Rodriguez, first conducted their weekly sessions with "the Virgin" in the late 1990s. The pair argued in April 2000, however, and Delgado left, borrowing the name to begin his own cult.
Sometimes called "the Virgin cult," Delgado's group developed ties to Texas, specifically to San Antonio and surrounding areas, where several of its members reside. It also has its own Web site, where Delgado's "messages" from "the Virgin" are routinely posted. Sometimes cryptic and vague, they are periodically more secular, referring to current Costa Rican politics and sporting events. ...
Still other messages are more dramatic. Among them are predictions that Pope John Paul II will soon be assassinated and that the world will end in the final days of December. ...
Evan Moore, The Houston Chronicle: Disgraced priest finds home in secretive sect
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