A widespread and bizarre controversy in Italy has finally come to an end after the Vatican announced that a notorious Marian statue that allegedly shed tears of blood was deemed to be false.
The story is a fantastical tale that has captivated the Italian imagination for over a year. It involves fraud charges, an apparent miraculous multiplication of gnocchi, and priests conducting secret investigations into the alleged supernatural events.
The drama is centred in the small Italian town of Trevignano Romano, home to roughly 6,000 people and located near the shore of Lake Bracciano, about 40 minutes north of Rome.
There, a Sicilian woman named Gisella Cardia has a statue of the Madonna she bought in Medjugorje several years ago. Cardia claims the Madonna has been bleeding from the eyes since 2016 and has been giving her private revelations since then.