(June 29, 2017 at 7:47 pm)Astonished Wrote: I can only assume the reason I've never heard this is because it's too big of a load of shit to even make fun of (or I'd have at least heard something about it on tube by now). Anyone want to go into any details on this? I tried looking through here and didn't find anything I found clear or consistent on what this is all about.
If you need to stimulate a local economy nothing works better than an apparition.
Quote:The statue had, according to locals, begun to move as they prayed and before they knew what was going on the statue of Our Lady had lifted up her garbs to display her private parts which were quoting passages from the Bible.
Quote:IT harks back to a time when the Catholic Church was the rock ‘n roll of Ireland, the Ballinspittle moving statue was like no other phenomenon the country had seen up to that point. In 1985 thousands flocked to the small Cork village to catch a glimpse of the moving statue that had it all.
Quote:The interest was intense; fights had broken out in queues to the statue and priests were drafted in for crowd control...
Quote:A whole economy built up around the statue and the small town: replica statues were sold, T-shirts sold out on the first day. Prostitutes jumped on the bus to Ballinspitlle and made a fortune.
Quote:Tickets for the Vatican run events cost upwards of €1,000 and the Ballinspittle statue mania reached fever pitch.
Quote:It was only when Our Lady made the cover of Time magazine in 1999 with that famous wink pose that the locals of Ballinspittle realised they had been duped by the Vatican but it was too late, the statue had become the single biggest revenue generator for the church, eclipsing both church collections and priests forcing elderly parishioners to sign over all their possessions in their wills.
It's amazing 'science' always seems to 'find' whatever it is funded for, and never the oppsite. Drich.
