Tears of blood 'Miracle' explained
Barbara McMahon in Rome
Friday September 9, 2005
The Guardian
When a statue of Saint Pio began weeping tears of blood in a small town in southern Italy, local people hailed it as a miracle.
But the Roman Catholic church has revealed that the "tears of blood" which appeared in May were not a miraculous act of God, but the blood of a local woman.
Although no one knows which woman in the small town of Marsicovetere, near Potenza in the region of Basilicata, is responsible, local people believe it is probably a devotee of the ascetic Italian monk Saint Pio, one of Italy's most revered religious figures.
Canonised in 2002 in a ceremony in Rome attended by more than 250,000 believers, he was said to be the first priest in centuries to show stigmata - Christ's crucifixion wounds.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1566186,00.html