The Miracle Woman  tells the story of a pastor’s daughter who experiences the ingratitude of her congregation, who dismiss him and, as a result of the displeasure, he dies. This provokes an angry reaction, which an unscrupulous man exploits to build a business using her, profiting from religion and the suffering of others. Her encounter and falling in love with a blind young man, who has found hope through her words, also rescues her and frees her from the deception she was ensnaring. Bioethics finds in this film a powerful argument for liberating people from any fanaticism that manipulates their desires, including the kind that can tempt scientists.

A shocking scene: Which God? Whose God? Yours?

Frank Capra liked to begin many of his films with a powerful scene, in which the emotional intensity of the content expressed on screen would quickly draw the viewer into the plot. This is fully the case in  The Miracle  Woman (1931) ^[1] . When We begin to watch it, believing we are witnessing a peaceful reenactment of a religious service typical of a Reformed church in a rural area of ​​the United States. That day the minister is going to deliver a farewell address.

However, events unfold, creating growing unease. The pastor is slow to appear before the congregation. The attendees begin to murmur anxiously. Someone points out that it’s understandable the pastor isn’t in a hurry to appear since he’s been dismissed. Finally, the Protestant clergyman’s daughter, Florence Fallon (Barbara Stanwyck), appears in his place and explains that her father is unwell and that she will read what he dictated to her. In what she reads, her father expresses his sorrow at having to leave a community he wanted to serve until the end of his days, a community that has chosen a younger man to replace him. After a few sentences, Florence stops and explains that her father couldn’t write more because he died in her arms five minutes ago, but that she will continue the sermon in his name.

Although they try to stop her, she perseveres in her purpose: “Leave if you want: My father preached to empty hearts. I don’t mind speaking to empty pews.” She gravely accuses the congregation: “My father is dead, and you killed him! You crucified him as he was clearly crucified (and she points to a stained-glass window of Christ on the Cross). He died of disappointment, lack of love, ingratitude…”

Capra positions Florence directly in front of the viewer, so that the audience seems to be receiving the reprimand. When the attendants try to silence her because she is in the house of God, the tone of her accusation rises: “What God? Whose God? Yours? This is not the house of God, it is a meeting place for hypocrites.”

In response, the faithful leave offended, while she insists on applying to them chapter 23 of the Gospel of Matthew where Christ accuses the scribes and Pharisees of hypocrisy… She tells them that they spend six days sinning gravely and that on Sunday they play at pretending to be good by attending the religious service… The temple seems to empty out.

The Christian God had already chosen to experience that death in order to end sin and announce the resurrection.

What is the point of such a scene? Is it an attack on religion by Capra? Or a search for greater authenticity in his practice? In his autobiography ^[2],  Capra recounts how he insisted that Columbia Pictures owner Harry Cohn buy  Bless You Sister  , a play written by Robert Riskin (who later collaborated with Capra as a screenwriter on many of his most iconic works) and John Meehan. It was based on the life of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), founder of the Church of the Foursquare Gospel. An ambiguous figure, she both helped the community and was accused of hypocrisy in her preaching. Recently, her story has been reclaimed from a feminist perspective. Cohn wasn’t entirely convinced that bringing such a subject to the screen was appropriate. And Capra, upon finishing the film, became convinced that the mogul was right, given the delicate nature of portraying such a profound topic on screen.

However, the Sicilian-born director was raising a question that contemporary philosophy, at least since Nietzsche, had continued to grapple with: whether the failings of Christians had led to the death of God. Capra offered a radical response: the Christian God had already chosen to experience this death in order to eradicate sin and herald the resurrection. This personalist argument was later developed by the philosopher Jean Lacroix (1900–1986), a disciple of Emmanuel Mounier.

Nothing is more common and trivial than the Nietzschean theme of the death of God. In truth, it is not only Nietzschean and should not surprise Christians so much. Faith, hope, and charity are based on a fact that implies the death of God and his triumph over death: God has risen!… Undoubtedly, when we speak today of the death of God, we think of something else: … the disappearance of his idea among humankind, his growing absence in humanity. The theme of the death of God is simply another name, seemingly more modern, for the problem of atheism… the true atheist would be the one for whom God has definitively and completely died. In Nietzsche… this did not mean in any way, according to a false interpretation, that it was necessary to kill God, but rather that God had already died even if this was pretended not to be the case; that humanity had killed him, so to speak, unconsciously, and that, belatedly terrified by its act, it tried to forget it in bad faith, refused to assume its responsibility, and continued living as if it had not done so. ^[3]  (Lacroix, 1964, pp. 9-10)

Hornsby represents a further step within this contemporary atheism: turning the death of God into a business so that the only divinity is money.

“Religion is like anything else. It’s great if you can sell it, and it’s nothing if you give it away. Let me prove it to you.”

To avoid misinterpretations, Cohn ensured the film was preceded by two texts containing a biblical warning against false prophets, so that the film would be understood as a clear denunciation of any attempt to commercialize faith. Because it is This is precisely what the character of Bob Hornsby (Sam Hardy) represents. We have noted that the oratory was  almost  empty during Florence’s invectives because the only one who remained was Hornsby, applauding her speech. Enchanted by the young woman’s personality, he takes advantage of her fragile emotional state to make a truly diabolical proposition.

He presents himself to the young woman as someone with no plans, no profession, no beliefs, no limits… but he does possess a method for getting ahead. Hornsby seeks to persuade Florence that most of the world’s problems stem from people who have convictions. He explains that you don’t need any convictions to follow them, only those for which you can be paid. She has received training from her father that has her knowing the Bible by heart. Now she has to approach this training as a business opportunity. “Religion is like anything else. It’s great if you can sell it and nothing if you give it away. Let me prove it to you.”

Florence agrees, but with a certain ambivalence. When she preaches, she seems driven by a noble desire for the Gospel’s message of love to reach people through new means. However, Hornsby has no qualms about staging a spectacle through fabrications. He hires actors to pretend to be crippled, paralyzed, grieving widows… so that Sister Fallon’s preaching becomes the answer to their misfortunes, working miracles that stir the congregation and encourage them to make generous donations.

One of the first fronts of bioethics is to defend the integrity of research and medical practice against superstition or fanaticism.

We believe that Capra, in presenting the business conceived by Hornsby, is challenging bioethics. One of its primary concerns, in terms of rigorous scientific knowledge, is to defend the integrity of research and medical practice against superstition and fanaticism. The desire for liberation from the ills that threaten health and physical integrity is one of the strongest driving forces of human desire. The task of ensuring that the most vulnerable are not manipulated and that this is not transformed into an unscrupulous business is an indispensable intellectual and social responsibility.

But this desire is not only manipulated from a religious perspective. For decades, a false discourse about science has also been present, creating false expectations about its meaning and power. What gains ground over time is the sensationalism of its proposals. Siva, for example, recently witnessed a strange silence from a specialist in obstetrics and pharmacology when asked whether men can get pregnant. ^[4]  Almost five years ago, Justo Aznar and Julio Tudela had already answered correctly in the negative. There are no pregnant men, but rather women who undergo gender transition treatments “to adopt the appearance of a transgender man” who has conceived a child. ^[5]

These excesses and shortcomings of reason ultimately reinforce each other. As José Sanmartín wisely warned, modern super-ideology has entered a crisis, with an increasing proliferation of alternatives, many of which harbor a furious technocatastrophism and a return to religious fundamentalisms more characteristic of other eras. Technofanaticism has ultimately generated a technocatastrophism that threatens to throw the baby out with the bathwater. ^[6]

Their mutual infatuation drives her to want to stop being part of a web of deceit, and him to accept his blindness.

But Capra never creates despair. Hornsby’s show business will ultimately fail. A fire will devour the temple at the end of the film, like an episode of death and resurrection, of Florence Fallon’s own purification. Her transformative agent has been the encounter with true love. Her preaching, broadcast over the airwaves, has rescued a young blind man, John Carson (David Manners), from the despair of feeling useless that was driving him to contemplate suicide.

Grateful, Carson seeks to contact her. When he succeeds, he invites her to his apartment, where they share innocent amusements that help her rediscover her innocence and almost experience joy and good humor anew. Their mutual infatuation propels her to want to stop being part of a web of deceit, and him to accept his blindness.

In the final scene, she appears participating in the Salvation Army charity parade, to which she has donated all her earnings of one million dollars. At that moment, she receives a telegram from John telling her he is leaving the hospital, that he isn’t sure he’ll ever see her again, but that it doesn’t matter anymore because he loves her and is going to marry her.

Conclusion: what is truly liberating is the love that gives meaning to health and illness.

With truly exemplary freshness and foresight,  The Miracle Woman  raises central issues for bioethics. Human illness and suffering pose a challenge to medicine and all health sciences, but they must never lose their human focus. Human dignity is only truly respected when it is shown that, beyond any contingency, people are valuable. That what is truly liberating is the love that gives meaning to both health and illness.

Technical specifications:

Original title:  “ The Miracle Woman”   .

Year:  1931.

Duration:   1h 30m.

Country:  United States

Directed by:  Frank Capra

Gracia Prats-Arolas  . Professor and researcher in Philosophy and Film. Catholic University of Valencia

Jose Alfredo Peris-Cancio  . Professor and researcher in Philosophy and Film. Member of the Bioethics Observatory. Catholic University of Valencia

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[1]  Can be viewed at  https://m.ok.ru/video/7305000454824

[2]  Capra, F. (1997).  The Name Above the Title.  Boston, MA: Da Capo Press, pp. 129-131.

[3]  Lacroix, J. (1963).  The meaning of modern atheism.  (J. Gómez de la Serna, Trans.) Barcelona: Herder, pp. 9-10

[4]  Minguet Civera, C. (January 20, 2026) comments on this with great insight and irony in this contribution. Can men get pregnant? Confidencial Religion. Retrieved from  https://www.elconfidencialdigital.com/religion/opinion/carola-minguet-civera/hombres-pueden-quedar-embarazados/20260120032759054974.html

[5]  Aznar, J., & Tudela, J. (May 5, 2021). Can a man conceive and give birth to a child?  ABC Comunidad Valenciana .

[6]  Sanmartín Esplugues, J. (1990).  Technology and the human future.  Barcelona: Anthropos, p. 13