Report of W.C. Hendricks to the Penological Commission of California

I have in front of me a newspaper clipping from June a year ago, titled "Priests Denounced After Rejecting Miracle Claim." And let me just read a few sentences: Stockton, California. Angry believers denounced a panel of priests as "a bunch of devils" after the clergymen ruled that a weeping Madonna in a rural Roman Catholic church is probably a hoax, not a miracle. One woman, Lavergne Pita, burst into tears when the findings were announced Wednesday by the Diocese of Stockton. Manuel Pita protested that "these investigators are not investigators. They're a bunch of devils. How can they do this?" Reports that the sixty-pound statue sheds real tears and can move as far as thirty feet from its niche in Mater Ecclesiae Mission Church in Thornton began circulating two years ago. Church attendance has tripled since then… Last year the diocese named a commission to study the reports. In announcing the panel's finding, Bishop Roger M. Mahoney said the events connected with the statue "do not meet the criteria for an authenticated appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ." The statue may have been moved, the tears may have been applied… Actually, the tears were never reported to flow, they were just seen, and they were gluey ...»