In Syracuse, Sicily, the weeping Madonna

The miracle, approved by the Church in a matter of months, occurred on August 29, 1953, in Syracuse, Sicily, in the house of a young couple, Angelo Iannuso and Antonina Giusto. The young wife was pregnant with their first child. For three days, the plaster sculpture of the Virgin Mary they had received as a wedding present and hung in their room, wept human tears.

The Church received the news with caution. Scientific experts, including well-known atheist Dr. Michele Cassola who chaired the Scientific Commission, saw the tears and became important eyewitnesses. Chemists collected 1 cubic centimeter of the liquid in a test tube for analysis. On September 9, 1953, all the commission’s scientists signed a report acknowledging the reality of the phenomenon and their incapacity to find a scientific explanation.

On December 12, 1953, the episcopal conference of Sicily issued a unanimous statement in favor of the "undeniable" authenticity of the miracle of tears.

Today, the tears of the Madonna of Syracuse are preserved in a precious reliquary, exposed in the crypt of the Basilica-Shrine of Our Lady of Tears, in Syracuse.

Aleteia