No Basis For Reports Of ’Weeping' Portrait

Northern Advocate, 15 July 1949, Page 5

No Basis For Reports Of ’Weeping' Portrait

WARSAW, Thu. (10 a.m.).— I The Roman Catholic, hierarchy appealed today to Poles to atop making pilgrimages to Lublin, where one person was killed and 10 were injured in a stampede to see a “weeping’’ portrait of the Virgin Mary in Lublin Cathedral. The Bishop of Lublin said an inquiry by a special commission had failed to disclose any b,asis for the widespread reports that “something of a supernatural character’’ had occurred in the cathedral.

A Government spokesman said the responsibility for “the blood of the people killed or half-killed in Lublin falls equally upon the Catholic Church and the Voice of America.” The state prosecutor has ordered an investigation of the disturbances. It is reported that two transport officials who organised‘special train excursions to Lublin have been arrested. Peasants from the fanning area around Lublin have joined the streams of pilgrims, dislocating bus and train services and bringing confusion to the whole of the city. Extra militia have been assigned to Dublin to halt the flow of worshippers to the cathedral. The stampede followed reports that six blind persons were cured after praying in front of the picture, which was stated to be shedding tears of

blood and water. Local priests estimated that. 500,000 pilgrims had visited the cathedral in the last seven days. After the stampede the ottlcial Com-munist-controlled press agency denounced the miracle reports as “mischievous and fantastic'’ and threatened prosecution of the originators for spreading false reports. The denunciation of the miracle came a few hours after the Vatican radio had broadcast the threat to excommunicate all Catholics belonging to the Communist Party. The official report charged Lublin Catholics with deliberately staging the miracle for other than religious purposes and claimed that a Catholic commission, after investigating the story, had admitted that there was no ground for thinking a miracle had occurred.