I'm not so sure the Virgin really cares that much to be seen anyway. As Pope Pius once put it, "The Mother is not pleased when she is exalted above her Son."

ya know, what does that mean?

The reason that the Virgin Mary is held in such high regard in the Catholic Church is because she is one of two people in history to have never been born with sin or commit a sin.

But the authorities say the image is likely to be a stain caused by salt.

Except that we do not know whether this is true. The Scriptures testify only that Christ was born without sin, and that because of the conception by the Holy Spirit.

But whether she was immaculately conceived or not, she is not a Person of the Holy Trinity, and therefore is not equal to the Son.

What do you think the Feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates. Its not Jesus' date.

Why do you think God chose Mary to carry his child.

She was a being free from the stain of Original Sin and had never sinned. God wasn't going to pick anybody. He wanted the person to be perfect. So he made Mary free of sin.

I am not saying that you are absolutely wrong about thid, BTG. Nor am I claiming that the Mother of Christ should not be honored as one of the great saints of history. But without support from Scripture, the claim that Mary was sinless cannot be substantiated or argued.

No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture. But the first scriptural passage which contains the promise of the redemption, mentions also the Mother of the Redeemer. The sentence against the first parents was accompanied by the Earliest Gospel (Proto-evangelium), which put enmity between the serpent and the woman: "and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and her seed; she (he) shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her (his) heel" (Genesis 3:15).The translation "she" of the Vulgate is interpretative; it originated after the fourth century, and cannot be defended critically. The conqueror from the seed of the woman, who should crush the serpent's head, is Christ; the woman at enmity with the serpent is Mary. God puts enmity between her and Satan in the same manner and measure, as there is enmity between Christ and the seed of the serpent. Mary was ever to be in that exalted state of soul which the serpent had destroyed in man, i.e. in sanctifying grace. Only the continual union of Mary with grace explains sufficiently the enmity between her and Satan. The Proto-evangelium, therefore, in the original text contains a direct promise of the Redeemer, and in conjunction therewith the manifestation of the masterpiece of His Redemption, the perfect preservation of His virginal Mother from original sin.

And he came to her and said, "Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But Mary was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the Angel said to her, "Do not be afraid Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus.