Madonna di Trevignano, news on Gisella Cardia
April 26, 2024
3.30pm
In Civitavecchia we are once again talking about statuettes that “exude perfumed oil”. After the story of Trevignano Romano and the visionary Gisella Cardia, near Rome the faithful pray in the garden of the Gregori family.
Frame from Don Antonio Mattatelli’s YouTube video
Maria Giuseppa Scarpulla, better known as the visionary Gisella Cardia, is not the only one to say she has a statuette of the Madonna that has “teared and exuded” perfumed oil. Given that statues do not cry or exude oil and that miracles do not exist, it is not the first time that a phenomenon of this kind has been spoken of on the outskirts of Rome. Even before the story of the phantom apparitions in Trevignano Romano, red tears were photographed on another statuette. We are talking about the Madonna of Civitavecchia, a story that dates back to 1995. The statue in question is now kept in a shrine in the Church of Sant’Agostino, today the Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Lacrime in via Fontanetta in Borgo Pantano.
The family that owned it, the Gregoris, have another statue in a small cave in their garden, given to them on behalf of Pope John Paul II. And this very statuette recently, according to them, has returned to “exuding oil”. Unlike the affair linked to Trevignano Romano, regarding which the diocese of Civita Castellana and bishop Marco Salvi expressed themselves with “Constat de non supernaturalitate” i.e. there is nothing supernatural, on Civitavecchia the Church expressed itself with the doubtful formula: “Non constat del supernaturalitate”. It would mean that the Commission at the time did not reach a majority conclusion on the phenomenon.
The video of the statue of the Madonna of the Gregori family in Civitavecchia
A video published on Don Antonio Mattatelli’s YouTube channel was shared on Facebook. In the film, dated Monday 22 April 2024, and presumably set in the garden of the Gregori family’s home in Civitavecchia, Fabio Gregori is seen taking a statuette of the Madonna from a small cave among the vegetation, lifting it and showing it to those present. The faithful hold out their hands towards the statue.
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The caption of the video reads: “On 22 April 2024, the Monday after the Fourth Sunday of Easter, feast of the Good Shepherd, the Madonnina of Civitavecchia once again exuded scented spikenard oil, while a group of 33 people coming from the cathedral of Terni and led by the parish priest, together with Fabio, the head of the Gregori family, the family that the Virgin chose as the recipient and guardian of her wonders and her messages starting from 2 February 1995.
At three in the afternoon, time of Mercy, the oozing began. This is what a young man testified: It is an intoxicating scent that captivates your senses, an unimaginable thing that does not exist on earth. It’s heavenly. They were small, bright drops that formed rivulets on the statue. One moment they weren’t there, the next they were flowing.”
The story of the Madonna of Civitavecchia
The story of the Madonna of Civitavecchia, of the original statue, which today is kept in the Sanctuary and which cried blood, dates back twenty-nine years ago, and was the first “television miracle”. It is a plaster statuette, which depicts Mary in the title of Queen of Peace, just over forty centimeters high and the work of the Croatian craftsman Sthepan Vlaho. It was located inside the garden of a villa in Pantano, the northern outskirts of the port city, owned by the Gregori family.
It is said that he would cry blood in front of a five year old girl, Jessica Gregori, and to about fifty people, fourteen times between February and March 1995, the fourteenth time it would have happened while it was in the hands of the bishop. Furthermore, the Madonna appeared to her 92 times between 2005 and 2006, entrusting her with messages, which however were not made public. Over the years the phenomenon has attracted thousands of faithful on pilgrimage. On 10 February 1995, Fabio Gregori handed the statuette over to Bishop Girolamo Grillo, who was initially skeptical and then became a fervent supporter.
In April 1995 the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Civitavecchia requested the seizure of the statuette to subject it to various assessments. The blood was tested and found to be human, male, but no member of the Gregori family agreed to undergo DNA sampling and therefore was not compared. The case was later closed. There was also a diocesan commission for this matter, which however did not arrive at a majority conclusion.
