93-year-old Bishop claims holy powers

by Viclene Matthews 07.MAR.08

“Sardo, you done become a doctor,” Conrad Cleophas Sutherland was told by someone who noticed his curative powers. He is not a medical doctor or even an herbalist; he heals with God’s holy Power”. His method is “pray, wash and anoint”.{{more}}

The 93-year-old, who is a resident of Hadley’s Village, claims that he received his healing powers while repenting during mourning. He reflected that he saw a person in lily white who took a star from the clouds and placed it in both of his eyes. This, he claims, has enabled him to see different countries in the right eye and trees with healing powers in the left. He said he was told that “the large glass is to see far and the small glass is to see near”. Sutherland further stated: “If then, you can’t get better, I will see directly how to cure you,” he said.

Sutherland, who has been a Bishop for 35 years, is one of the founding members of the Christian Pilgrim Faith. The Bishop, who claims that he has healed “lots of people,” said that one has to believe in God in order to be healed.

Sutherland recounted one of his success stories to Searchlight. He said that there was a child who doctors didn’t believe could get better. He, however, took up the challenge. Sutherland said that he held the child in his hands, asked God’s blessings on the baby, then washed and anointed the child with holy oil. “It get better!” he declared. He explained that he is not keen in healing people anymore, because they are ungrateful. “Some of them don’t even say thanks,” he said.

The Bishop, who is also a lie detector, is warning persons not be untruthful when they come to him because he would know.

Sutherland is one of two persons ordained as a Bishop in the faith on April 15, 1973. He was one of the persons instrumental in getting a licence for Christian Pilgrims to operate in St Vincent and the Grenadines. The Bishop explained that their first application was denied, and the government at the time said their organization was a “Shade for Shakerism”.

Sutherland, who is the father of eleven, two of whom have died, started working at the age of fifteen on Hadley’s estate for 12 cents a day. He went to Trinidad in 1943, where he spent a number of years.

A laid back, do-it-yourself man, Sutherland will achieve a milestone this year. April 30, 2008, will be 68 years since he and his wife Princess tied the knot. Princess, who appears to be the one who refreshes the Bishop’s memory of happenings of yesteryear, is the epitome of an obedient wife. The Sutherlands have achieved a milestone many find hard to emulate.

Sutherland, who is the oldest person in Hadley’s Village, is seen as an icon in his community, and is well respected among his villagers.