from God, and which were "something else." After discussing this with Megan Wolpert and Suzanne Patmore, executives at Spyglass, Hatem said "what [he] expected would be a 20-minute meeting turned into a three hour meeting, where ideas were flowing back and forth." Hatem claimed the show was born "that day, in that room" in March 2001. Hatem, Wolpert, and Patmore liked the idea that a character (Paul Callan) who came from a strict religious background and was raised to believe that any strange occurrence was either a sign from God or a sign from the devil, was suddenly thrust into a world where various phenomena "crossed those boundaries" and could not be classified as "good or bad" because they had elements of both. Hatem believes this is the element that "creates the drama," and makes the show "fun and scary." Hatem, Wolpert, and Patmore researched various supernatural and religious folklore and found that most of those types of encounters could "find a nexis in [Miracles], and [they] could do all kinds of stories". The three also agreed that "[Miracles] could not be a show about the Catholic Church [...] ABC was not interested in taking that on". Hatem referenced in the Miracles DVD interview a short-lived series that aired on ABC during the 1997–98 season called Nothing Sacred, which centered on the Catholic Church in the 1970s. While the show's main character was raised with a Catholic upbringing, Hatem did not want to make the series about a "Vatican conspiracy". Hatem did however acknowledge that the pilot episode transitioned from religious phenomena to paranormal phenomena, and that the transition between "'religion' and 'general paranormal' [was a huge challenge] all the way through, because the questions kept coming back: 'Is this guy a priest?'; 'How do we explain he's not a priest?'; 'How do we explain that his points of view are not the points of view of the Catholic Church?'". Hatem also acknowledged that as they were preparing to "sell a show whose pilot has priests, and a monsignor", the Church was in the midst of a sex abuse scandal that was being reported in newspapers all over the country. Hatem recalled that "the joke was, '[the show wasn't] on the air long enough to generate controversy'; we would have loved controversy, but we flew so low under the radar that I don't think anyone had a chance to be