Peruvian pop saint inspires curious flock

CALLAO, Peru -- Hundreds jam the sweltering courtyard outside Sarita Colonia's graveyard shrine to thank her for the miracles she has granted them.

Cliques of drag queens strut through the crowd, clutching rose bouquets. Elderly women serve bean stew to anyone who is hungry. Fidgeting children wait in line with their parents to be rubbed with sacred flower petals.

It is a typical party for Sarita Colonia, a humble Andean migrant whose brief life has inspired the faith -- and fantasies -- of a curious flock of Peruvians, from prisoners and prostitutes to ordinary grandparents and schoolchildren.

Ofelia Fuentes can barely contain her glee as she bobs among the crowd at Colonia's tomb.

"Look at all these people," says the 59-year-old fish vendor. "There isn't one person Sarita hasn't done a miracle for. Isn't that right?" she shouts to a half dozen listeners. All nod eagerly.

Fuentes' eyes grow wide as she tells how her grandson, Roy, was stillborn 14 years ago but miraculously came back to life after she rushed to Colonia's shrine and prayed to her.

A faded reproduction of the only existing photograph of Colonia -- a 1928 family snapshot -- peers from Fuentes' T-shirt.

Twelve years after that photo was taken, Colonia died of malaria at age 26, and was buried anonymously in a mass grave in this port city next to Lima.

Since then, Peru's fervent Roman Catholicism and its vibrant pop culture have converged to turn the young woman who had dreamed of becoming a nun into a saint-like figure for Peru's poor and outcast.

Today, Sarita Colonia is everywhere.

Her likeness dangles from the mirrors of Lima's buses and taxis. Rock singers and pop crooners proclaim her beneficence. Novels and oil paintings, T-shirts and Web sites, even tattoos and a recent television miniseries have all exalted Colonia.

Hasn't been canonized

It's a devotion pursued without the blessings of the Callao archbishop.

Colonia has not been canonized, a process that can take centuries. In the meantime, the church urges her followers not to "worship Sarita until it is permitted, and much less carry out acts that have the appearance of witchcraft."

That warning came in a 1980 communique signed by then Archbishop Ricardo Durand.

Today, Peruvians of all ages and backgrounds revere Colonia. But her following is still popularly associated with the marginalized and outcast, people like Gabriela Ventura, a 30-year-old drag queen.

Ventura -- out of drag -- has come to the shrine to leave Colonia flowers. He credits her with saving his life when a gang chased and shot at him, their bullets "miraculously" whizzing by his side.

"I believe in God, a very great God," Ventura says. "But I also believe in my Sarita."