REPORTS of weeping and bleeding statues and other religious objects at a Vietnamese community centre in Brisbane cannot be declared miraculous and are probably a hoax, a Church probe has found.
The results of the commission of inquiry were released at a media conference called by Archbishop John Bathersby of Brisbane on July 29.
It concluded that ‘the substance that seeped from artefacts is very like one that is commercially available and it is possible that the substance was applied to them by human hands’.
The inquiry over almost two months was undertaken by archdiocesan judicial vicar Fr Adrian Farrelly and a team comprising scientific and legal experts after reports of unusual happenings at the Vietnamese Catholic Centre in Inala, in Brisbane’s south west.
As part of their investigation, Fr Farrelly and his team examined the weeping statue and other religious artefacts concerned. They also sought witness statements from those who said they had seen the unusual happenings.
Archbishop Bathersby said the investigation at Inala was ‘not meant to justify the existence of religious signs and wonders, which in the life of the Church is taken for granted, but rather to ascertain whether the apparent signs and wonders that appeared at Inala were of supernatural origin’.
Fr Farrelly said he was only asked to investigate whether the happenings at Inala were supernatural, nothing more.
He said in his report: ‘The commission accepts the testimony that members of the Vietnamese community witnessed what they have said they witnessed.
‘That does not establish that someone did not contrive the phenomenon.
Fr Liem has been on sick leave and was unavailable for comment.
To read Archbishop Bathersby’s full statement click here
