Our Lady weeps in a bishop's hands

On 2 February 1995, six-year-old Jessica Gregori saw a red liquid trickling from the eyes of a statue of the Virgin Mary at her parents' home. The phenomenon recurred on several occasions in front of different people, including Bishop Girolamo Grillo, the diocesan bishop. Several investigations were carried out, along with various scientific tests, but no natural or human explanation was found for the phenomenon. More than a year later, Bishop Grillo personally acknowledged the authenticity of the facts and had the statue installed in the parish church of Saint Augustine (Pantano, Civitavecchia), where the faithful can come to pray to the Madonnina, whose traces of bloody tears are still visible.

Shutterstock / Zwiebackesser

Reasons to believe:

A full legal investigation took place in March 1995, including surveillance, a search and a telephone tap on the Gregori home. As no trickery, mechanism or hiding place inside the statuette was discovered, the case was dismissed.

The statuette continued to weep while under police surveillance in the Gregori's garden, locked behind a securely fastened glass panel.

An initial blood test was carried out by doctors Umberto Natalini and Graziano Marsili, while the statuette was still in the Gregori home.

More comprehensive scientific analyses of the tears and the statue were subsequently carried out. The people in charge were well-known and respected scientists: Professor Angelo Fiori, Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, and Professor Giancarlo Umani Ronchi, Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at La Sapienza University in Rome.

The chemical, radiological and biological tests carried out were as exhaustive as possible. The results were indisputable: the blood was human male and the material from which the statuette had been made (plaster) could in no way be the cause of the lacrimal episodes.

Following a complaint lodged by an anti-fraud association that believed there was a pump inside the statue operated by remote control, and on the orders of magistrate Antonio Albano, Professor Maurizio Vincenzoni carried out a CT scan on 10 February 1995 that definitively ruled out the presence of any devices or other anomalies inside the statue.

Dr Aldo Spinella, from the Criminapol (forensic police) investigations section, confirmed the results of the analyses carried out previously, adding: "We have gone further than Professors Ronchi and Fiori: we have determined the mitochondrial DNA. I can confirm the male characteristics."

Luigi Di Maio, head of the Civitavecchia police station, went on to explain: "We have established with absolute certainty that there has been no substitution and that the statuette that was crying in the garden [of the Gregori family] is precisely the one that was subjected to the tests carried out by Professors Fiori and Umani Ronchi."(cf. G. Baccarelli, La storia della Madonnina delle Diritti di Civitavecchia, Edicomp Compagnia editoriale. italiana, 1995, p. 104).

The possibility of aparapsychological manifestation was examined by Professor Roberto Zavalloni, a clinical psychologist specialising in these cases; after meticulous study and questioning of numerous witnesses, he rejected such a hypothesis.

The public approval of this miracle by the diocesan bishop, Bishop Grillo (d. 2016), is an exceptional act in the twentieth century in the Catholic Church, which generally shows evangelical caution towards extraordinary phenomena.

The late Bishop Grillo was a down-to-earth man with a scientific mind: he was one of Italy's best post-war sociologists and always showed immense wisdom in matters of discernment and pastoral care.

At first, Bishop Grillo was very sceptical about the witnesses' accounts: "I had thought it was one of the usual pranks of crying statues, and at that time many of them were crying all over Italy", he wrote in his diary. At first, he "categorically" forbade all his priests to go to the scene, writing in his diary: "Poor me, as if it were true!"

He changed his mind when the statue began to shed tears as he held it in his hands on 15 March 1995, in the presence of five other people.

Bishop Grillo's reaction to the lacrimation (from a serene state he turned white as a sheet, began to stagger and a cardiologist had to be called) testifies to the authenticity of a very real fact, beyond reason, which took him by surprise.

He said: "My sister touched it and got blood on her finger..." This is not possible in the case of a hallucination or an illusion.

An incredible detail: the Madonnina began to weep when Bishop Grillo reached a certain passage of the Salve Regina: "Turn thine eyes of mercy towards us..."

Bishop Grillo had no personal interest in recognising the authenticity of the facts. This caused a stir that was unfavourable to him, and many of his detractors.

From a canonical point of view, Bishop Grillo could have judged the case without referring it to anyone. Instead, he wisely informed the Holy See immediately.

The theological commission he set up met thirteen times between 19 April 1995 and 22 November 1996; its eleven members, all prominent experts in their field, gave a positive opinion at the end of the last meeting.

On 13 March 1995, Bishop Grillo also received a telephone call from Don Gabriele Amorth, a well-known exorcist in the Diocese of Rome, who informed him that a mystic he had been accompanying knew that the case in Civitavecchia was genuine.

The fruits have been numerous and uninterrupted since 1995: people come to Civitavecchia from all over the world, and the many ex-votos placed there in homage to the Madonnina clearly show that pilgrims come from all walks of life, and that marginalised persons, sick people and former drug addicts are well represented among them.

Summary:

In the autumn of 1994, Don Pablo Martin, a Spanish priest and parish priest in Civitavecchia, near Rome, brought back from Medjugorje a white plaster statuette of the Virgin Mary, 43 centimetres high, with a base six centimetres in diameter. He gave it to Fabio Gregori, a 32-year-old electrician, following his return to the Catholic faith. The object was placed in the family's small garden.

On 2 February 1995, at 4pm, the Gregori family - Fabio, his wife, Anna Maria, and their two children, Jessica, aged five, and David, aged two - went to mass at their parish church in Pantano, a suburb of Civitavecchia, less than a kilometre from their home. But at the church, the announcement was made that mass would be delayed. Fabio went home with his two children. Ten minutes later, they were home, and it was then that Jessica began to look closely at the statuette, as she was wont to do. She had dropped it on the floor a few days before and the impact had caused scratches on the Virgin's cloak that were still visible. Suddenly, Fabio, who was about to go back to the church, heard in the next room: "Daddy, come see, the Madonna is crying blood." Thinking that his daughter had hurt herself, he hurried over and was stunned to discover that a red liquid was dripping from both eyes of the statuette. The tear from the right eye had stopped in the middle of the cheek and the tear from the left eye was still running down. Fabio thought it was some kind of illusion. He ran a hand over the statuette's face to see for himself. "It's hot" he exclaimed. Then he tried to wipe the Madonna's face with his handkerchief: strangely enough, no trace appeared on the cloth.

The father and his two children returned to the parish and attended mass as usual. When the ceremony was over, the whole family told the priest what had happened. The latter immediately went to the Gregoris' home with them and saw the miracle for himself. Over the next few hours, the Gregori house was visited by relatives, neighbours and passers-by who were surprised to see a procession in this ordinary house. Photographs were taken, and people knelt before the "Madonnina". The next day, the priest spoke from the pulpit about the event: "Something extraordinary is happening in our little community at the moment. A statue of the Virgin is crying tears of blood. We should not let this sign remain hidden." It was the end of tranquillity for the Gregori family. The number of people ringing the doorbell of the family home would not cease to increase. The diocesan authorities were alerted.

On the evening of 3 February, Fabio witnessed a second lacrimation. His family and several friends witnessed the flow of tears of blood. It was decided to install the statuette behind a glass plate, firmly attached to the niche in the garden where the object was kept. The very next day, crowds gathered in the Gregori garden. In the evening, a number of witnesses, including several police officers who had been sent to the site to control the influx of people, witnessed a new lacrimation. On Sunday 5 February 1995, Our Lady shed tears of blood once again. At the end of the afternoon, Bishop Grillo, the bishop of Civitavecchia-Tarquinia, was informed.

Fabio was weary: his house had been turned into a place of pilgrimage, his daily life had been disrupted and the ecclesiastical authorities had made no statement... He decided to remove the statuette from his garden and give it to his parish priest in order to regain a little peace and quiet. But the bishop was, at the time, extremely cautious about the reality of the facts, and refused to allow the priest to take the statuette. It was then discreetly handed over to one of Fabio's brothers, who lived nearby. The press picked up on the story. Bishop Grillo called on his clergy and the faithful to exercise the utmost caution and forbade his priests to visit the Gregori home.

Between 13 and 16 February, the statuette wept twelve times in front of more than forty witnesses. The bishop ordered the Madonnina to be taken to his home. There, he installed it in his private chapel. Analyses were carried out at the Gemelli polyclinic in Rome. The reports of the scientists charged with examining the statuette and the samples of blood tears were unequivocal. There was no possible trickery and no conceivable natural explanation : the tears were indeed human, of male origin.

The following month, two major events occurred. A judicial enquiry was launched: the Gregori family, suspected of fraud, was watched day and night. But the investigations came to nothing, and the police admitted that they had found nothing. Fabio and Anna Maria were cleared of all suspicion. The case was closed, but the court ordered the statuette to be sequestered to prevent any public disturbance and to carry out further analyses at a later date.

On the morning of Monday 15 March, Archbishop Grillo celebrated Mass in his private chapel in the presence of his sister, Grazia Maria, and four other people. After the ceremony, at around 8.15am, he took the statuette in his hands and recited the Salve Regina. Two thirds of the way through the prayer, he noticed that the Madonnina was crying... His face turned white and he almost fainted. His sister, terrified, cried and screamed. The other witnesses were stunned. Grazia Maria impulsively touched the statuette with her fingers. "I saw the blood on my sister's finger" explained Bishop Grillo, who at that moment asked Mary for "his conversion and the strengthening of his faith".

On 19 April 1995, the eleven-member theological commission set up by the bishop met for the first time. It interviewed around forty witnesses, including the bishop himself. The following year, the eleven members confirmed the authenticity of the phenomenon. From then on, in theory, there was nothing to stop the local ordinary, who noted the "abundant fruits" that had spread since the first lacrimation, recognising the miracle.

Bishop Grillo kept the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with whom he had repeated exchanges, rigorously informed. Pope John Paul II testified to his attachment to the miracle. The statuette was discreetly brought to him by the bishop so that he could observe and pray before it. In the end, Bishop Grillo decided to issue a positive statement about the events in Civitavecchia. He personally recognised the authenticity of the events and had the statue installed in the parish church of Saint Augustine in Pantano, a suburb of Civitavecchia, behind glass, where the faithful could now come to pray to the Madonnina, whose traces of tears of blood are still visible on the plaster of the sacred object.

Patrick Sbalchiero

Beyond reasons to believe:

Despite the attacks of materialists and skeptics of all kinds, almost thirty years after the event, the Civitavecchia pilgrimage is still going strong, with reports of spiritual and human fruits of all kinds.