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A BRIEF PRIMER (cont'd)
 All religions accept the notion that miracles occur, although some religions accord them more weight than others. Catholicism is unique in that it is the only religion with a formal structure for investigating and verifying miracles. In the Catholic view, God has spoken through supernatural intervention, visions, dreams and the work of saints since Old Testament times. There is a strong belief among practitioners that God continues to use ordinary people as a mouthpiece for important spiritual messages. Yet the Church has remained cautious about sanctioning the many reported miracles across the world, carefully investigating each one and often maintaining a "wait-and-see" attitude towards the most mysterious occurrences.
Modern Catholic miracles include healings of the profoundly ill, visions of Jesus and Mary, the appearance of stigmata and statues that cry human tears, shed real blood or emit the inimitable odor of rose petals. Although many of these events may seem far-fetched in light of our scientific age, several such bizarre happenings have resisted explanation under intense scientific investigation. In some cases, simple explanations come to fore: for example, one crying statue was proven to merely be sweating reddish oils when its old paint job came into contact with human sweat. Yet others have been x-rayed and chemically analyzed without any logical conclusion.
Several 20th century miracles have received sanction by the church, including the famous miracles at Lourdes and Fatima, which continue to move people to visit these shrines today. Other recent Church-approved miracles include the apparitions of Mary walking on the roof of a church at Zeitoun, Egypt (an apparition which hundreds of thousands of people saw live on Egyptian television); a weeping statue of Mary and the appearance of stigmata in Akita, Japan in the early 70s; and the regular visions of Mary seen by two teenage girls in Slovakia in the early 90s.
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