His ‘Miracle’ Profits Turn to Dirt : Mail orders: Complaints from a New Mexico church persuade a Canoga Park distributor to discontinue sales of religious trinkets.

Following protests from a Roman Catholic church in New Mexico, a Canoga Park distributor has halted sales of a cross encapsulating “miracle” dirt the seller guaranteed would bring its owners love and riches.

Burton C. Unsen, who created the cross for his mail-order company, which sells a variety of occult and New Age products, notified officials of Holy Family Church in Chimayo, N.M., on Tuesday that he was discontinuing the item, a church spokeswoman and an Unsen employee said Wednesday.

Priests there had charged that supermarket tabloid ads for the cross implied that dirt in the cross came from the famed Santuario de Chimayo, a 19th-Century chapel. An estimated 300,000 people yearly visit a legendary pit in the chapel, which contains dirt that many believe has curative powers.

“Mr. Unsen said he had no idea people felt so strongly about Chimayo,” said Delores Rivera, who works in the church office, which oversees the chapel. “He said he was sorry the whole thing had caused so much trouble,” said Rivera.

The priests at the church were at a seminar with the area’s archbishop and could not be reached for comment.

Unsen, who uses the name Burton Charles in his advertisements for the cross, claimed in ads that his life was dramatically changed for the better when he visited the town of Chimayo, though he did not say he visited the chapel. He promised those who bought the cross--priced from $15.95 to $18.95 in various ads--”your money problems will fade as your savings grow,” among other benefits.

The ads did not say that the dirt in the mail-order crosses came from the chapel, but the text included a history of the shrine and a description of its supposed powers.

“It was misleading, probably on purpose,” the Rev. Miguel Mateo, pastor of Holy Family, said in an interview last week.

Mateo said Holy Family had received numerous letters and calls from people asking if the church was involved in the sale of the crosses.

Unsen, who has been in the charms business for more than 20 years, refused to comment on his decision to discontinue the product. But an employee of his company, Dassi Inc., said: “The whole thing had gotten to be just too much of a problem.”

A spokeswoman for the federal Postal Inspection Service, which investigates mail fraud, said the agency had taken note of the controversy but is not investigating.