Weeping statue

Other claimed phenomena are sometimes associated with weeping statues such as miraculous healing, the formation of figures in the tear lines, and the scent of roses.

These events are generally reported by Catholics, and initially attract pilgrims, but are in most cases disallowed by the Church as proven hoaxes.

Reported weeping statues are most often sculptures of the Virgin Mary and are at times accompanied by claims of Marian apparitions.

[1] Authorities of the Catholic Church have been very careful in their approach and treatment of weeping statues, and generally set very high barriers for their acceptance.

[13] In 2018, at the Our Lady Guadalupe Catholic Church in Hobbs, New Mexico, a Mary statue was reported to be producing tears.

In July of that year, the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces revealed that tests confirmed the tears in fact had the chemical composition of rose scented olive oil.

[16] According to Joe Nickell, "animated ones", or inanimate objects that are claimed to do things such as walking, changing facial expressions, or shedding tears, are most commonly statues in the Roman Catholic tradition.

A painting of the Virgin Mary is said to have exuded moisture from the eyes and the fingers at St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church in Chicago on 6 December 1986.

[10] A painting of Mary on plywood was said to have wept on 10 March 1992 in Barberton, Ohio;[49] annual pilgrimages celebrating the event were still in practice as late as 2002.

[50] Another painting of the Virgin Mary which drew many visitors to Christ of the Hills Monastery near Blanco, Texas in the 1980s was said to weep myrrh, but was uncovered as a fraud in the 2000s.