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WILL THIS PERSISTENT DELUSION NEVER GO AWAY?
The small church of St. Agostino in Pantano, a poor agricultural suburb of the port of Civitavecchia, Italy, about 40 miles north of Rome, made international headlines in February of 1995, attracting thousands of curious visitors and charming the media when a Madonna statue was said to have shed tears of blood. This claim is, as we know, a rather common cause célèbre, and it faded into the rest of such mythology, mixed in with other objects — pictures or statues — that were weeping blood, tears, or oil, or simply rotating, and/or sundry glowing objects that the tabloids depend on for headlines when the other Madonna is behaving herself.
Get ready for another onslaught of "evidence," since the Civitavecchia diocese just ordered theologians, historians and doctors — all "experts" — to review the matter and prepare an official document. They did so, and not surprisingly concluded that the phenomenon has no ordinary explanation, thus encouraging the local shops and hotels to expect another onslaught of eager tourists.
Corriere, Italy's leading newspaper, said the report presented a careful analysis of all the testimony given at the time by awed parishioners, as well as "all possible explanations for the phenomenon." The paper said that it was the "unanimous opinion" of the "experts" that "in that corner of the Earth, at the gates of Rome, an event took place that has no human explanation and points at the mystery of the supernatural."
The 17-inch tall statue was said to have cried fourteen times, and Monsignor Girolamo Grillo, the local bishop, said that the statue cried blood while held in his hands. However, Grillo had a very cautious statement to issue about the event, perhaps recalling that so many other such wonders have been subsequently revealed as blatant hoaxes: "We have not proclaimed that the tear-shedding of the Madonna was miraculous, but the facts speak for themselves." Nice dodge, Monsignor!
But just what are those facts? Back in 1995, it was immediately found that the red liquid on the statue was male human blood, which might make a skeptic begin to wonder, but hardly slowed down the public enthusiasm for the miracle, of course. These wonders are not easy for ordinary mortals to understand, you see.
Some of us might ask why a DNA test-and-match was not performed with local males who had access to the plaster statue, particularly the statue's actual owner, Fabio Gregori, and his family. That would mean calling into question the honesty of certain persons, we were told, a distinct no-no in the religious hoax business. Ah, but other high-tech methods were diligently applied to this statue, showing that real science was at work to support the miracle. An X-ray and CAT scan showed no cavities that could house a device to squirt liquid, you see. Well, in my perverse way, I recall that back in the 1940s in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the local priest at a church that had been visited by another weeping virgin miracle was discovered squirting K-Mart shaving lotion onto the celebrated statue from a concealed plastic water-gun. That holy figure, too, had been thoroughly examined by "experts" who fumbled the investigation grandly.
Some of us just never grow up, folks, and will continue to get goggle-eyed over such claims just because they're supportive of popular mythology. Medieval thinking is still in vogue, it seems. And, we must ask, what expertise do "theologians and historians" have to judge such matters? Lots of anecdotal material? Appeals to local pride? And those medical doctors, who might have used their authority — if they were given any — to perform the appropriate and obvious tests, simply failed to do so!
Ten years after the event, it's a bit late for launching another investigation, a fact which suits the needs of the miracle-mongers quite well. The Bleeding Virgin of Civitavecchia is bound to become an accepted wonder of Christianity, I'm sure....
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