Moving statues and concrete thinking

In the early months of 1985 Irish newspapers reported a spate of apparitions that came to be known as the "moving statues". By late summer reports said 100,000 people had visited just one of many apparition sites. In this paper I will argue that the phenomenon was largely a media-created one; that only a relatively small number of people ever took the apparitions seriously; and that understanding why they did so requires a synthesis of sociological, historical, theological, and psychological approaches and insights..