Another crying statue

There's another crying statue of the Virgin Mary, this time in Sacramento:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Carrying rosary beads and cameras, the faithful have been coming in a steady stream to a church on the outskirts of Sacramento for a glimpse of what some are calling a miracle: A statue of the Virgin Mary they say has begun crying a substance that looks like blood.

It was first noticed more than a week ago, when a priest at the Vietnamese Catholic Martyrs Church spotted a stain on the statue's face and wiped it away. Before Mass on Nov. 20, people again noticed a reddish substance near the eyes of the white concrete statue outside the small church, said Ky Truong, 56, a parishioner.

What's goin' on in Leo has this observation:

One of the believers thinks this portends a disaster. Oh, gee, a disaster? We don't have any of those unless you count the tsunamis, the earthquakes, the hurricanes, etc.

On a similar line, from La Blogda:

Some believe that this is sign full of major portent, warning us of a natural disaster or an epidemic. It never ceases to amaze how the religious right always get these things wrong: she’s crying because half the country elected W into office yet again. Duh, it’s so obvious.

Or maybe she’s crying because Alias killed of Michael Vartan (I will never forgive the producers for that), and now this is Alias’ last season (might as well be, they killed off super cute hottie spy).

It's one thing when people forget to look for natural explanations for these seemingly miraculous events. But why, why are people so quick to declare they know what God is thinking when he sends these signs? Maybe its because they have to work hard to banish the thought that God's just screwing with us.

The Vatican generally does an investigation of sorts of these things:

The Rev. James Murphy, deacon of the diocese's mother church, the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, said church leaders are always skeptical at first.

"For people individually seeing things through the eyes of faith, something like this can be meaningful. As for whether it is supernatural or a miracle, normally these incidences are not. Miracles are possible, of course," Murphy said. "The bishop is just waiting and seeing what happens. They will be moving very slowly."

Move slowly? You've had a week, guys. It can't take more than a few hours to collect a sample of the substance and send it in to be analyzed. That wouldn't tell us everything there is to know about this, but could tell us a lot. If its something other than blood, we could begin looking at possible sources of the given substance. Wiping the stuff off and secretly establishing video surveillance would be a good move as well. Why move slowly on such things?