Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Feb. 18, 2003
http://abc.net.au/
The Australian Sceptics Association says a further investigation by the Catholic Church of Rockingham’s weeping Virgin Mary statue is most likely to have revealed there is no supernatural force or miracle involved.
The association has conducted inquiries itself into the statue.
WA president John Happs says hard evidence has already proved the tears are fake and much like those of many other celebrated weeping statues around the world.
Mr Happs says he hopes Perth’s Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey will release the church’s report soon.
“If the powers that think that there’s a bit of deception involved then they might want to remove it on those grounds, I don’t know that that is the case,” he said.
“If they feel that it’s generating too much media interest that maybe another criterion that they’re using to remove it, we don’t know, I mean nobody knows apart from Barry Hickey at this stage.”