“The tree can be recognised by its fruits”, quotes Bishop Girolamo Grillo the words of Jesus from the Gospel, when somebody asks him about Gospa weeping tears of blood in the town of Civitavecchia. A little statue of Our Lady bought in Medjugorje more than ten years ago started to weep tears of blood about ten years ago, in the village of Pantano, near the town of Civitavecchia, 60 km from Rome.
The phenomenon was noticed for the first time on February 2, 1995. On March 15 of that same year, the bishop of Civitavecchia was personally a witness of this event, which science cannot explain. In the interview given to the Italian daily “Avvenire” (journal of the Italian Bishops Conference), bishop Grillo is evaluating what has happened in his diocese during the past ten years.
Bishop Grillo: See for yourself: since then, pilgrimages not only do not decrease, but this place of grace has been purified from all the sensationalistic elements and from curiosity. People who come to Pantano have an immense desire to change, to convert. In favour of this is also speaking the fact that I had to put five confessors permanently at the disposal of the faithful. They have told me that they have reconciled with God numberless people, people who were far from faith during long years. It has happened that they received even contrite murderers. More than thousand families, which had fallen apart because of divorce or a separated life, were reunited, and this is nowadays not a usual thing. Many women who were longing for motherhood became mothers. They continue to come here, with the desire to baptise their child precisely here. And finally, many are asking for the sacrament of baptism, even Muslims. Therefore, why not to make known all these numerous positive fruits?
Bishop Grillo: We have prepared a dossier, which will soon be published on national level. We have already 44 booklets with signatures of the pilgrims, with their thoughts and impressions. According to me, they reflect all the fears of our time, and at the same time hopes of those who ask for Mary’s intercession.
Bishop Grillo: Each year in the night from February 1st to 2nd, the faithful come on pilgrimage from the centre of the town to Pantano. They walk 12 kilometres. This year, more than 1500 people were walking. They were not afraid of the freezing cold. However, let us remember: only 20 years ago, Civitavecchia was called Stalingard of Lazio. More than 60% of the population of this anticlerical and anarchistic city were communists. This event with Gospa gave a completely different mark to the city. It is true that the Mother of God was weeping, and I believe that it was not only because of Civitavecchia.
Bishop Grillo: As a bishop, I am very happy that St. Augustin’ Parish in Pantano became a centre of evangelisation – not only for the whole city, but for whole Italy and for the whole world. In the last statistics for the month of November 2004, I counted twelve foreign groups of pilgrims, from Sri Lanka to Latin America. We try our best to cherish and to promote a true Marian devotion, a devotion that leads to Christ. I think that this is well accepted. For all the rest, it needs time. We have to wait and be very patient. If good fruits are not proceeding from them, supernatural events cannot be proven in a world that does not believe in God, that has lost the access to real values.
Bishop Grillo: After that morning, March 15, 1995, I was under a great chock during two or three years. The Blessed Virgin Mary has changed my life upside down, and she led me to ponder deeper into myself and into a deeper spiritual life. I have made greater efforts to be open for the needs of the faithful. Besides my pastoral work, I am consecrating additionally more time to spiritual guidance.
Bishop Grillo: During my last Ad Limina visit, Holy Father asked me about the possibility of building a Marian shrine. I answered to him that I was ready to do it, but I also asked him to help me to build in Civitavecchia a house for the sisters of Mother Teresa from Calcutta. I would really love that spiritual and material fruits of such a shrine be really and mostly of use for the poor.
Il Messagero of Wednesday, June 1, 2005 reports – “‘The opening’ of Ratzinger: Papa Wojtyla venerated the Madonna of Civitavecchia”, by Orazio Petrosillo
Vatican City - “The Madonna of Civitavecchia will do great things” said Benedict XVI on Monday, as he was greeting bishop Girolamo Grillo at the end of the meeting with the Italian Episcopal Conference. Exactly on April 1st, the day before the death of Jean Paul II, the bishop of Civitavecchia gave a dossier to the Congregation for the Doctrine of faith chaired by the cardinal Ratzinger. A commission under the auspices of the Congregation had emitted the verdict according to which it does not state the supernatural character of the lacrymation, which was affirmed publicly, during the emission “Door to door”, by cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, already collaborator of Ratzinger.
Monsignor Grillo, in a meeting which took place yesterday, recalled the great veneration that Jean Paul II had for the Madonnina of Civitavecchia, and his desire not to make public this unfavorable verdict, waiting for more profound studies. Repeating things partly already known, but adding other new details, Grillo told that one evening at the end of February 1995, he carried the miraculous statuette to the Vatican to Jean Paul II, who venerated it, prayed in front of it and, at the end, posed on the head of the Virgin a crown which he had brought himself.
The meticulous account of the evening and the veneration expressed by the Pontiff is written in the journal of Mons. Grillo who, while fearing not to be believed after his death concerning the course of the accomplished gestures of the Pope Wojtyla, required of the secretary Mons. Stanislaw Dziwisz a kind of testimony of the same Pontiff. A copy of the pages of the journal was sent to the Vatican, and the Pope authenticated it with his signature: “Joannes Paulus PP II”, October 20, 2000.
For recall, the statuette which represents the Virgin of Medjugorje was weeping blood (the clinical examinations proved that it was male human blood) 13 times at the house of Gregori, from February 2 to 6, 1995, in the presence of tens of witnesses, even public functionaries, and one 14th time at the bishop’s house, on the following March 15. A commission of theologians decided in favour of the supernatural origin of the events; another, made up under the auspices of the Congregation, denies its supernatural character.