- SIDNEY, Australia (UPI) --
Western Australian scientists on Thursday said there is no obvious scientific
explanation for the flower-scented tears seeping from a statue of the Virgin
Mary, a phenomenon that has drawn thousands of pilgrims to the small coastal
town of Rockingham.
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- The Lady of Lourdes statue, which has reportedly been
"weeping" on and off since March, was analyzed this week by independent
scientists at two universities. A research chemist at Perth's Murdoch University,
Doug Clarke, showed the statue to be weeping oil, which he considers to
be olive oil with a jasmine aroma.
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- Clarke, who is an expert in the analysis of unknown compounds,
told United Press International the test was "the strangest project"
he has worked on.
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- "My gut feeling is someone has been very clever,"
he said. "I believe the statue is a fake because I don't believe olive
oil can materialize from a fiberglass statue. I believe the oil has been
put there, though how I don't know.
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- "There is an explanation for all these things. But
you need more tests to find out how it's been done."
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- The 2-1/2-foot-tall statue was also checked at Curtin
University where X-rays found the statue to be porous, but sealed on the
outside. There do not appear to be any holes or scratches on the surface
to allow the oil to seep out.
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- Rob Hart, from the university's medical imaging department,
analyzed the statue to verify if there was anything unusual inside the
statue, such as a sponge for holding the oil, but found no conclusive evidence
either way. "It doesn't look like there are physical holes inside,"
he said.
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- For her part, the owner of the statue, Patty Powell,
who bought the statue while on vacation in Thailand eight years ago, and
who has always maintained the tears are not a hoax, told UPI she felt vindicated
by the results of the tests.
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- "I had such a peace before, I knew in my heart what
is the truth," she said. "If I was going to try and pull the
wool over people's eyes, I wouldn't have had the statue tested in the first
place."
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- Powell told UPI the statue cried for the first time on
March 19 -- St. Joseph's Feast Day -- then from Good Friday to Easter Sunday,
then on June 2, the Roman Catholic feast of Corpus Christie, and then again
on Aug. 14.
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- It has been weeping on and off since, attracting at first
hundreds of pilgrims to her home, and now thousands to Rockingham's Our
Lady of Lourdes Church. Many sick people have queued up, hoping for a cure
from the oil.
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- Powell said she believes the statue is crying because
"God is trying to give us a message. The message to me is the world
is in so much turmoil."
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- Earlier this week, Archbishop Barry Hickey, the head
of the Catholic church in Western Australia, said that no official proceedings
would be made to have the statue's powers formally recognized by the church.
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- He told the local Catholic newspaper that he could not
say if the weeping was natural or supernatural, but the sight of Mary weeping
had already had powerful spiritual effects by calling people back to God.
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- "I can't see a natural explanation for it, but that
doesn't mean there isn't one," he said.
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- Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All
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