‘Holy Water’ Drips from a Christ Statue in India Did it actually leak from a clogged toilet?

Law:

A statue of Jesus Christ in Bombay, India, began dripping “holy water” which believers collected and drank, but it was later found to be leaking from a clogged toilet.

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Which is true

The famous debunker of superstitions, Sanal Edamaruku, investigated the matter and concluded that the water dripping from the statue was leakage from a nearby sewage pipe. This in turn led to his exile in Europe after Catholic groups brought charges against him for allegedly violating India’s “blasphemy laws”.

Which is undefined

The claim specifically attributed the water leak to a “clogged toilet,” a detail that has yet to be verified against a primary source. Snopes reached out to Edamaruku to learn more.

The claim that a statue of Jesus Christ in Mumbai, India, mysteriously began dripping holy water from its feet, leading some to believe it was a divine miracle, went viral on the Internet in November 2024.

According to A Reddit fasting, believers began to collect and even drink water just for the sake of it for later be the result of a clogged toilet.

One user commenting on a Reddit thread he said“Honestly, this water was almost certainly permeated with the miracle of life. Microbial life, yes, but it was permeated.”

This claim has been spread before, including: post on X in April 2024 and multiple Reddit threads as of 2019, encouraging the user to comment“Full of vitamins B and M.”

(Sad_Stay_5471 on Reddit)

Although the claim that the event was a miracle was debunked when the water leaking from the sewage was proven to be true, we rated it as a mixture of true and undetermined as the leak was allegedly the result of a clogged toilet, but we have not yet been able to independently verify this particular detail in the original source.

However, the events surrounding the Jesus statue in Mumbai were already widely covered in the media in 2012, primarily due to the controversial consequences. refutation.

When the statue outside the As the Church of Our Lady of Velankanni in Bombay began to attract Catholic attention as a potential site of a miracle, the Indian rationalist Sanal Edamaruku was asked to examine the passage on the Indian TV9.

In a 2012 interview New scientistweekly science and technology magazine, Edamaruku explained its arrangements.

I looked carefully at the nearby washroom and the drain system connected to it, which ran under the concrete base of the cross. I removed some rocks from the drain and found it was blocked. I touched the walls, the base and the cross and took some photos for documentation. The matter was very simple: water from the bathroom, which had become blocked in the clogged sewage system, seeped through capillary action into the adjacent walls and the base of the cross, and into the wooden cross itself. Water flowed out of the nail hole and ran down the feet of the statue.

Edamaruku was a famous whistleblower at the time, having previously made headlines when he challenged a Hindu fakir who claimed he could “kill anyone with tantric chants” to do so live TV.

According to BBC: :

Since they were both guests in the studio, the fakir was immediately put to the test.

The channel canceled all subsequent programs, and he started singing on the spot. But as the hours passed, a note of desperation crept into his hoarse mantras. For his part, Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, showed no sign of discomfort, let alone death. He just chuckled as he talked about this unorthodox (and failed) attempt on his life.

The same BBC report also mentioned Edamaruku’s activities in 1990s when “Edamaruku visited hundreds of villages, performing the seemingly fabulous feats for which some self-proclaimed holy men were famous – materializations of watches or “sacred” ash – baring them as a mere cutter of the hand.”

Despite his previous experience in debunking religious miracles, his the appearance on TV9 caused outrage among Catholic organizations in India, and brought charges against him, citing them Section 295A of the Indian Penal Codewhich prescribes the penalty of “imprisonment… for a term which may extend to three years, or fine, or both” for “deliberate and malicious acts intended to offend the religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.” ”

Fearing prosecution, Edamaruku fled to Europe in 2012 and lived there since then. He said Guardian at the time, “The Catholic Archbishop of Bombay, Oswald Cardinal Gracias, said that if I apologized for the ‘crime’ I had caused, he would make sure the charges were dropped. This shows that he has influence over the situation but he won’t use it unless I apologize, which I won’t because I haven’t done anything wrong.

He said that in 2013 audience “radio program”World“I never believed something like this would happen in India. I never, ever thought that working to promote scientific temper and educate people against superstition would be considered a crime in India.”

Snopes has reached out to Edamaruku to verify details of this story, including the claim that the leak was caused by a clogged toilet, and will update this article and its rating if and when we learn more.

Snopes has verified numerous reports of so-called miracles, including: Statue of Jesus allegedly opening eyesAND A church physically moved by the hand of God AND scattered salt forming the image of Jesus.