Ohio woman claims she saw a Virgin Mary statue miracle, local reverend skeptical

An Ohio woman claims to have witnessed a miracle but local church leaders are skeptical.

Connie Liptak told Cleveland FOX affiliate WJW that she photographed the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima closing and opening its eyes during the inanimate statue's tour stop in Canton.

“I knew it was a miracle because I’d been looking at her all morning,” Liptak told the station. “They’re really closed. I mean, you can really see her lashes are down.”

The Rev. David Misbrener, the pastor at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist where Liptak claims the miracle happened, told the Canton Repository − part of the USA TODAY Network − that he has doubts about what happened.

"I'm a little bit skeptical of such things, and the church is very cautious with such things," Misbrener told the paper. "Anything can happen with a camera. My take is that if anyone benefited spiritually or physically, it did its job."

Virgin Mary statue's other lore

Believers ascribe multiple miracles to the same statue, including healings and astral phenomenon.

"We know that she’s wept 15 times,” said Larry Maginot, statue's custodian, told WJW.

In spite of the reverend's skepticism about the claims of a statue blinking, Misbrener did tell the Repository that a different kind of miracle occurred during the tour stop.

"I would say the miracle is people coming together at churches and praying," he said. "We do need a lot of hope in our society. We're in a lot of flux right now."

What is the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima?

The statue was commissioned in 1947 in Fatima, Portugal, as a reminder of a series of reported appearances by the Virgin Mary to three peasant children, Lucia dos Santos, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, between May 13, 1917, and Oct. 13, 1917.

The statue was crafted based on a description given by dos Santos, the oldest child and the only one who said she spoke to Mary, telling church authorities that Mary revealed to her three secret messages about the future. She became a Carmelite nun, dying in 2005 at 97.

The Vatican officially accepted the children's account in 1930. The Marto siblings, who died at 10 and 11, were canonized by Pope Francis in 2017. Sister dos Santos was canonized in 2023.

The statue has been displayed in over 100 countries and is currently on a tour of the United States that ends in late September.