The McCann family's parish priest, who has flown out to Portugal to help in the search for their daughter, spoke this evening of "a tidal wave of empathy and love" that has flowed from her disappearance.

As the number of visitors to a website set up for Madeleine's sake neared 60 million, Father Paul Seddon, who married her parents, Kate and Gerry, and baptised the four-year-old girl, said the world had been inspired by the family's resilient reaction to her abduction two weeks ago.

"Initially we all felt weak and helpless but when we looked at this couple in the most awful situation imaginable, we asked ourselves the question - if they can be so courageous, why can’t we?" he said, standing outside the family's apartment in Praia da Luz in Portugal that has become the nerve centre of an extraordinary campaign to find her.

”People became inspired by them. There is now a worldwide movement to find her empowered by people everywhere."

”The emphasis is now on how we can channel negative emotions into positive action to make things better. We are not going to look back now, we’re going to look forward. Gerry spoke of the tidal wave of destruction Madeleine’s disappearance caused. It has now been met by a tidal wave of empathy and love which has been turned into hope and action."

Father Seddon, the Roman Catholic parish priest of St Richard’s Church in Atherton, Greater Manchester, said that the faith of Madelein's mother, Kate, had given her strength throughout the ordeal and alluded to a possible religious awakening experienced by Gerry, a consultant cardiologist, as he prayed for his daughter.

"Kate has a very deep-rooted faith and she turned immediately to God for hope and strength," said Father Seddon, who married the couple eight years ago. "Gerry has found his own faith renewed through the incredible love he and Kate and the twins have received from everyone. He has told me he has experienced something in the church which set him on his way."

"He spoke to me about feeling like he was in a tunnel, but not at the far end where the light seems far away. He was at the end where the tunnel opened out, where everything seems possible.

”It was these experiences of love and support that have given them a renewed determination which made a huge impression on people."

Father Seddon said that frequent visits to the ecumenical church in Praia da Luz, whose congregation has been dramatically swelled in recent days by concerned local residents and sympathetic tourists, had helped the McCann find their energy for the publicity campaign to find their daughter, but he stressed that the main credit lay with Gerry and Kate themselves.

"I first heard that Madeleine was missing in the early hours of Friday morning two weeks ago. For everyone involved it was a terrifying experience," he said. "Those first few hours were filled only with darkness and fear. None of us will ever forget how we felt at that moment."

”If that feeling of helplessness and devastation had continued, it would have generated a sort of paralysis. But Gerry and Kate would not allow it - they knew it would have simply destroyed them as people and reduced the chance of finding Madeleine.

”They made a choice to take control of things. This gave them a positive focus and a conviction that Madeleine could and would be found. The role played by the local people and the local church cannot be overstated, along with the constant contact with friends and family back home. The frequent visits to the church stirred energy and a power that has strengthened them."

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