Inside a Catholic church in New Mexico, a 7-foot bronze statue of the Virgin Mary appears to be “weeping,” church leaders say.

The sculpture, known locally as Our Lady of Guadalupe, is not crying human tears. An investigator with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces said her “tears” have the same chemical makeup as olive oil treated with perfume — a substance that, when blessed, would be chrism, a sacred oil used in the Catholic Church to anoint the parishioners. The rare occurrence has prompted people from all over to come for conversions, confessions and to watch the statue of the mother of God cry.

The question is not merely how it’s happening (or whether it’s happening naturally), but how people are responding and why they might want to believe in the phenomenon.

“The Catholic Church has a long history of believing in supernatural signs,” said John Thavis, who wrote the 2015 book “The Vatican Prophecies.”

“There’s a kind of curiosity and enthusiasm when something like this happens because it seems to confirm the traditional belief that God works in our own world and sometimes the supernatural is visible in our world.”

It started on Pentecost Sunday on May 20, when parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Hobbs noticed tears streaming from the Virgin Mary’s eyes, said Judy Ronquillo, the church business manager. She said the statue continued “weeping” the next day and has done so several times since.

Ronquillo translated questions into Spanish for the Rev. Jose Segura, who was quoted as saying that in his 12 years of priesthood, he has never seen anything like it and that he first struggled to believe it was real. But, Segura said, the church has cameras, and no man-made explanation could be found. If there were evidence of that, he said, he would not allow it to continue, according to Ronquillo.

“It’s something extraordinary for him,” Ronquillo said about the priest. “He has no words for it.

“There was a moment when it happened that he didn’t believe, but now he believes.”

Photos and a video released by the church show the statue with what appears to be liquid inside the eyes and down the cheeks, mouth and chin. In one photo, the tear trail appears to have started on the upper eyelids.

About 500 milliliters of liquid had run down the statue, said Deacon Jim Winder, vice chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces. He said he and other investigators examined the statue and the surrounding area, including the ceiling, and found no signs it had been altered in any way.

Winder said investigators also spoke with the manufacturer in Mexico, dispelling any theories that the statue — which is cast bronze and hollow — might be leaking or secreting some substance.

The investigators collected about 5 milliliters (or a teaspoon) of the “tears” and had them tested, Winder said. The results showed it had “the same chemical fingerprint of olive oil treated with some kind of scent,” such as chrism, but it was transparent, not the brownish color associated with most olive oil.

“We don’t believe chrism oil was taken from the church and used to adulterate this statue,” Winder said. But church officials have no answers. “We don’t have an explanation for it.”

Catholic Church officials do not seem so much concerned with why the statue appears to be crying oily tears or the source of the tears, God, Satan or man, but rather the response from the community, Winder said. “That, in all honesty, is what’s most important — that it’s prompted people maybe to be closer to God. That’s what really matters.”

The Bible talks about judging a tree by its fruit, Winder said, so “we want to judge this phenomenon by what’s coming out of it.”

When apparent supernatural sightings occur in the church, the reports draw Catholics, who come seeking favor for their prayers, believing God may be “providing a direct link, and people want to take advantage of it,” said Thavis, an author and journalist who has written about the Vatican and other religious matters.

The Vatican usually allows the phenomenon to play out without endorsing it, and it expects the same from local bishops because the occurrences “often turn out to be hoaxes or are explained by science,” Thavis said. But it can take years to find the answer, he said, and sometimes no explanation can be found at all.

Winder said investigators still are monitoring the situation though they found no evidence that the events were man-made.

“If it’s not man-made,” he said, “that leaves two possible sources — Satan and God. All we can say at this point is what it is not.”