August 19, 2019 - Reported [here]. Video [here]. Rough translation from Italian. Madonna in tears, checks underway.

The parish priest don Bano: "Every decision is taken in agreement with the superiors, caution and patience are required"

The parish priest don Gian Paolo Bano returned to the village and the first thing he did was to make sure that his provisions had been applied to the letter: the Madonna "who cries" was put back in the crypt, locked, the procession of onlookers and faithful was discouraged. Waiting for clarifications. "The church will only be open during religious ceremonies and the statue was again placed inside the crypt," the priest said when he returned from the pilgrimage to Lourdes. "The decision was taken in agreement with the superiors".

A choice, that of the parish priest of the church of St. Thomas of Canterbury, made to protect the community of Ponte di Piave. "I have recently returned," explains the parish priest, "I have yet to verify whether there was a new phenomenon. In agreement with the superiors, the church will remain closed for the protection of the parishioners and only open on the occasion of religious ceremonies. At the moment we have no elements to make judgments or statements, the issue must be treated with the utmost tact, with a lot of patience and attention.

The news of the statue's tears, which mysteriously always appeared on Friday (2 and then 9 August), aroused deep curiosity not only in the town, but from the whole territory of the Treviso area. On the day of Ferragosti, feast of the Assumption, for reasons of security on the spot, the carabinieri of Ponte also arrived to watch over the large turnout of the faithful and the curious. And the priest, with a phone call, arranged for the statuette to be placed in the crypt where it was previously located.

The phenomenon of tearing has turned the spotlight on the town of Ponte di Piave and on Friday afternoon a television crew of the RAI broadcast, La Vita Indiretta, told the story.

"I think it appropriate to be cautious," Mayor Paola Roma commented yesterday. «We must express who of competence. I look forward to the evolution of the story. We have already given maximum availability to the parish ».

Instead, the community of Ponte is divided: there are those who shout to the miracle claiming that they are real tears appeared in the month of the feast of August that in the Christian tradition is the day on which the Blessed Virgin ascended into heaven and who is engaged in research of a scientific explanation, assuming that since the statue is made of fiberglass condensation is more likely.

An investigation to be carried out by the Church, always very cautious in the face of similar episodes, usually the local bishop starts an investigation, led by a team of scientists and experts able to eliminate the possibility of natural causes of the phenomenon. Theologians are also consulted to study the events and see if there is any spiritual connection. Tears could be collected and tested to see if the origin is human or simple condensation.

It is not the first time that the Ponte community has faced such phenomena. In July 1967 a peasant from the village had noticed several times that the statue of the Madonna of the capital of Negrisia moved his head. An episode that had a resonance from overseas, reaching the news agencies in New York that reported the news.