In the front garden of the Gregori family home on the outskirts of Civitavecchia, a port city close to Rome, is a well-curated grotto containing a tiny, rusting statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by plants and flowers. The figurine was bought from a souvenir shop at the Catholic pilgrimage site in Medjugorje, Bosnia.
In late April, as a group of pilgrims huddled around the grotto to pray, the statue purportedly exuded a scented oil. It was not the first time it was said to have sweated oil, but the moment, filmed by some of those present and shared on social media, reignited fascination in Italy over claims of the supernatural, pitting believers against naysayers. The story was all the more intriguing because the Gregoris were the protagonists of another mysterious weeping statue case in the mid-1990s.
