A statue of the Virgin Mary in Mexico has been filmed showing what appear to be real tears seeping out of the statue’s eyes, with locals flocking to the church to witness the ‘miracle’
A statue of the Virgin Mary in Mexico has been hailed a “miracle” by worshippers after tears appeared to be streaming from its eyes.
The extraordinary occurrence has captivated hearts across a nation that is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic with profound religious traditions.
The statue, housed within a church in the town of El Canal, Colima, was filmed displaying what looked like tears trickling from the Virgin Mary’s eyes. According to The Sun, countless people have journeyed to the church to observe the baffling miracle unfold before them.
Footage of the statue has spread like wildfire across social media, displaying water droplets tumbling from the statue’s eyes and rolling down her face. Some onlookers are convinced the Virgin Mary’s tears are genuine, pointing to the redness surrounding her eyes, which they maintain proves the statue has been weeping.
One local, Victor Ramos, said: “Similarly, when we cry, and our eyes become red, the same happens to the image. So a couple of tears started flowing. This is the event, the phenomenon that is happening here in the church.”, reports the Irish Star.
Mr Ramos believes the statue began weeping due to rising violence in the surrounding area.
He added: “We can associate it with the violence rates that are being experienced here in the state of Colima, also here in the community.”
As reported by The Daily Star, Colima has previously earned the dubious title of Mexico’s most dangerous city. This alarming statistic is courtesy of The Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, a Mexican organisation.
Last month, the US government issued a travel alert advising against visiting Colima and several other Mexican regions including Sinaloa.
Al Jazeera reports the advisory paints a bleak picture of escalating rates of homicide, kidnapping, carjacking and robbery, alongside a fresh warning of potential terrorist attacks and violence. It’s the first time Washington has ever raised the alarm over a terrorism risk in Mexico.
The Catholic church takes allegations of supernatural phenomena, such as weeping statues, very seriously but demands a high level of proof before passing judgement. In May 2024, the Vatican updated its guidelines for assessing supernatural events, including weeping statues.
This was triggered by the rapid online spread of unverified claims, which can lead to confusion among the faithful.
An article by The Conversation explained that this change was necessitated by the need to swiftly determine the supernatural origin, or lack thereof, of a range of phenomena increasingly occurring within the Catholic world – and spreading rapidly via social media. These new procedures replace the previous instructions which were issued back in 1978.
The fresh guidance from the church is designed to more effectively supervise the validation of such events when they occur. It centralises authorisation, management and control of the supernatural within the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
This is more widely known as “the Inquisition” and gives authorities in the church such as bishops an order to submit any potential miracle to the Dicastery for investigation.
