Priest behind Birzebbugia mystic claims statue of Virgin Mary 'crying tears of oil'

Followers of alleged mystic Angelik Caruana, led by Franciscan monk Fr Hayden send thousands of e-mails saying a new statue of the Virgin Mary owned by the priest was allegedly 'crying tears and oozing oil'.

10 October 2010, 12:00am
by Charlot Zahra

1 min read

The e-mail claims the status oozed oil on the night of 17 September and that the statue is sitll shedding oil.

The claims are similar to those of Caruana himself, who claims to witness regular apparitions of the Holy Virgin at the Borg in-Nadur shrine in Birzebbugia, and whose own statue of the Virgin Mary was said to be oozing tears of blood and even oil.

However, forensic experts who evaluated Caruana's statute had reported that the alleged blood was compatible with that of Caruana's, while the oil was found to be cooking oil.

Fr Hayden Williams, the spiritual director of the Caruana family, now claims the wooden statue he brought back from the Serbian town of Medjugorje is "oozing oil".

Read more in today’s issue of Illum, available from all leading newsagents in Malta and Gozo

More from Charlot Zahra

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Of all the oil that could have oozed out ... vegetable oil, sun fish oil, Texas crude. It had to be worthless cooking oil. Can you tell what brand it was?

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More harm than good is done with these supposedly miraculous happenings. The church has enough problems stop compounding them.

Monique Cauchi •

Beam me up Scotty!

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Jesus told us not to beleive such mystic visions and claims. For further details www.tecmalta.org/blata.htm peace and health wishes in the name of Jesus... Jekk xi bniedem jghidilkom: Ara, hawn, jew hemm, hu Kristu: la temmnuhx… Ara, jien [Kristu] ghidtilkom minn qabel. Jekk mela jghidulkom: Ara, qieghed fix-xaghri: la tohorgux; ara qieghed fil-kmamar ta’ gewwa: la temmnux dan. Matthew 24:23, 25-26. Mark 13:21. Imberkin dawk li ma rawx, u madankollu emmnu. John 20:29. Ahna nittamaw ghal dak li ma narawx. Romans 8:25, 2 Corinthians 4:18. Ahna nimxu bil-fidi, mhux bil-vizjoni. 2 Corinthians 5:7. Satana nnifsu jitbiddel f’anglu tad-dawl. 2 Corinthians 11:14. Jekk... anglu mis-sema, ixandrilkom evangelju iehor barra minn dan li xandarnielkom ahna: ha jkun mishut. Galatians 1:7-9. Spirti qarrieqa, u taghlim tax-xjaten. 1 Timothy 4:1. Issa l-fidi hi… il-prova tal-hwejjeg li ma jidhrux. Hebrews 11:1. Gesu’ Kristu: Li thobbuh, ghalkemm ma rajtuhx; li temmnu fih, bla ma tarawh issa. 1 Peter 1:7-8. Hafna jghiduli… Mulej, ma habbarniex f’ismek? U f’ismek keccejna d-demonji? U f’ismek ghamilna hafna ghegubijiet? … nistqarrilhom: Jiena qatt ma kont nafkom; tbieghdu minni, intom li taghmlu l-hazen. Matthew 7:22-23. u juru gheliem u ghegubijiet, biex iqarqu, jekk jista’ jkun, bil-mahturin ukoll. Izda harsu sewwa: ara, jien (Gesu’) ghidtilkom kollox minn qabel. Mark 13:22-23; Matthew 24:24. Thallu 'l hadd iqarraq bikom bl-ebda mod:… skond il-hedma ta’ Satana, bis-setgha kollha, u gheliem u ghegubijiet giddieba. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, 9.

Helenio Galea •

When is the church please please going to put a stop to this bunch of nutters? Many mistakes have been made and this charade is only going to be used against it in the future by people who cannot distinguish fools from the real thing or by others who will use the situation to add to the current collateral damage. The number of participating nutters is increasing. This is a crazy guy who is appealing to people who have a need to believe they are participating in some great miracle. Qed iwwaqqawna ghan-nejk.

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"The Unexplained," Doctor Karl P.N. Shuker, mentions a paper by Dr. Luigi Garlaschelli from Pavia University published in Chemistry in Britain. It describes how to make a statue weep. An except from the book is: "What is needed is a hollow statue made of a porous material such as plaster or ceramic. The icon must be glazed or painted with some sort of impermeable coating. If the statue is then filled up with a liquid (surreptitiously, through a tiny hole in the head, for example), the porous material will absorb it, but the glazing will stop it from flowing out. If the glazing, however, is imperceptibly scratched away on or around the eyes, tear-like drops will leak out, as if materialising from thin air. If the cavity behind the eyes is small enough, once all the liquid has dripped out there are virtually no traces left in the icon. When I put it to the test, this trick proved to be very satisfactory, baffling all onlookers."

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Another possible explanation attributes the so-called tears to condensation. The tears that statues appear to weep are said to actually be beads of condensation from microscopic cracks on the surface of the statues. Unpublished reports of the testing have supposedly been able to verify this theory, but peer reviewed scientific research is rarely, if ever, carried out into the phenomenon.

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well these tricks used to work say about 500 years ago. I wonder these fraud people cannot be brought to justice .... I wonder, these nonsense things (tricks) Hmmmmm How can One not luagh than??? LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Luke Camilleri •

Sibna iz-zejt fl-ahhar!

charlene cassar •

Is it still plain normal cooking oil or has it been upgraded to extra virgin olive oil now ?