On Aug. 8, approximately 1,500 pilgrims came to Christ the King Catholic Church in Worcester, Mass. While the Mass was ostensibly the central point of a healing service that day, pilgrims had come specifically to see the 20-year-old Audrey Santo. Tour buses were lined up around the block and many of those who arrived late waited patiently outside the church for the public viewing that was to be held when the Mass had ended. Some pilgrims were in wheelchairs, and many carried crucifixes and rosaries with them. Santo herself had entered the church earlier, having been brought by ambulance. At 4 p.m., pilgrims viewed Santo as she lay in her hospital bed, with many crossing themselves or genuflecting as they approached her.

On Aug. 9, 17 (1987) years earlier, Santo fell into her family's swimming pool and has remained mute and paralyzed ever since. The "Audrey Event," as the Mass and viewing have come to be called, is now an annual function well publicized by the Apostolate of a Silent Soul, the Catholic lay group that has dedicated itself to proclaiming "Audrey's message of life" to the world.

It was not Santo's accident that brought her to such public attention. Instead, claims about what happened after the accident made her an object of both devotion and suspicion. Over the last decade, it has been claimed that five Eucharistic hosts had bled in proximity to Santo. In addition to claims of bleeding hosts, statues and pictures have appeared to weep tears of oil and blood. Most of the statues are now held in what was once the Santo family's garage, which has been converted into a chapel

Tales of healings attributed to Audrey's intercession also began to spread along with stories of other supernatural phenomena. Soon pilgrims began to come to the Santo home in Worcester in order to be in Audrey's presence and to see her as the culmination of their visit. For these pilgrims, Audrey Santo is a "victim soul," an immaculate, sinless sufferer who offers up her own pain in restitution for sin.

In 1999, the Catholic bishop of Worcester initiated an investigation into the Santo case. In addition to evaluating reports of the supernatural and the extent of her consciousness, the bishop was particularly concerned with the custom of pilgrims saying "A Prayer to Audrey," which had been distributed on a prayer card after its approval by a French priest. In his report on the case, the bishop prohibited "A Prayer to Audrey" and Audrey herself was removed from public view except for the "Audrey Event" held on the anniversary of her accident. In his concluding remarks, the bishop stated that while he found no evidence of chicanery or abuse, the case would need further study. The study is ongoing.

On a billboard on Worcester's Route 122, a large photograph of Audrey is displayed along with the headline "Celebrate Life." While Audrey herself does not move or speak, those around her understand her to be a silent witness to the sanctity of all human life. The Apostolate of a Silent Soul points to the special significance of Aug. 9, the day of Audrey's accident and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, as a date with a mysterious association with suffering, death and redemption. In its efforts to promote respect for life and for those who suffer, the Apostolate of a Silent Soul has critiqued the medical establishment, promoted natural family planning and denounced abortion. As the movement surrounding Audrey Santo has grown, it has also embraced many themes within contemporary Marian apocalypticism, including the belief that John Paul II is the pope of the end times. But while the Apostolate of a Silent Soul would resolutely affirm traditional Catholic understandings of family and gender roles, it is an organization dominated by laywomen who claim a special kind of authority for their experiences of silent suffering.

Over the last decade, the Audrey Santo phenomenon has attracted substantial attention, both celebratory and suspicious, from both print and television media. This media attention is certainly not surprising, given the claims made about the miraculous. But what is surprising is how the phenomenon has been almost totally ignored by both liberal and conservative elements within the mainstream of American Catholic scholarly and media discourse.

Of course, the cause has been taken up by foundations and publishing houses that promote the esoterica of Marian apparitions and contemporary Catholic mysticism. But more widely read Catholic periodicals have thus far stayed well clear of the Santo case. Many liberal Catholics would doubtless be troubled by the apparent Catholic traditionalism of the Apostolate of a Silent Soul, especially its stance on issues concerning human sexuality. While the Apostolate's position on these issues might well bring a nod of affirmation from many Catholic conservatives, conservative Catholics as well might see the entire case an as embarrassment in its ostentatious supernaturalism, which seems to confirm the worst stereotypes of Catholicism as crassly superstitious and irrational.

Perhaps the general view among Catholic scholars and commentators of both the left and right could be best summed up in the remarks a priest made to me concerning the Santo case. When I asked him whether bleeding hosts and weeping statues were theoretically possible, he replied that such phenomena happen only very rarely and that there can be nothing more miraculous than the celebration of the Eucharist itself. The point is that the hunger for a miracle often distracts attention from the many miraculous elements of human life that transpire right before our eyes. But it is also true that the Eucharist points to a sacramental dynamic that infuses the materiality of human existence with divine grace. For this reason, talk of bleeding hosts and weeping statues strikes some as being self-evidently worthy of belief, if for others this very same talk raises suspicions of fraud. It is also because of Catholicism's sacramental vision that pilgrims understand the public display of Audrey Santo as providing a lens into the dynamics of crucifixion and redemption rather than representing the manipulation of a defenseless young woman.

The phenomena that accompany the Santo oil exhudations are also suspect, in part because cases of bogus weeping images have often been attended by other easily faked miracles (Nickell 1993). In this case there are "bleeding" pictures and communion wafers. Especially troubling are reports that stigmata - wounds imitating Jesus' crucifixion - have "mysteriously" appeared on Audrey's body, and on Good Fridays she has reportedly been seen to lie with her arms outstretched, as if crucified. According to one reporter, "Her parents say they cannot explain how their daughter, who cannot normally move herself, becomes positioned in this way" (Harrison 1998).

Although we live in a scientific age, there has been a resurgence in magical thinking, resulting in a revival of religious fundamentalism, the rise of the "New Age" movement, and an increase in "miracle" claims. The appeal is widespread, although it may be especially strong among the economically disadvantaged, where human despair and superstition may coexist. (The Santo phenomena, for example, take place in the midst of Portuguese immigrant families.)

People seem to hunger for some tangible religious experience, and wherever there is such profound want there is the opportunity for what may be called "pious fraud." Money is rarely the primary motive, the usual impetus being to seemingly triumph over adversity, renew the faith of believers, and confound the doubters. An end-justifies-the-means attitude may prevail, but the genuinely religious and the devoutly skeptical may agree on one thing, that the truth must serve as both the means and the end. Ultimately, neither science nor religion can be served by dishonesty.

Another case cited by Linda Santo concerned a woman supposedly healed of liver cancer through Audrey's intercession. In fact, however, the patient's oncologist pointed out that she had already begun a new cancer treatment and that it had clearly begun to work even before she had gone to see Audrey. The woman continued to regard the remission as a miracle even when the cancer returned, spreading to her brain ("Desperate" 1999).

On the 20/20 segment, titled "The Miracle of Audrey" (first broadcast October 4, 1998), Lynn Sherr asked, "Is this 14-year-old child a miracle worker, a messenger of God? Or is this all a cruel hoax, exploiting a sick and innocent girl?" Elsewhere a spokesman for the bishop confessed to having qualms about a disabled child being placed on public display. On one anniversary of Audrey's accident, she was exhibited at a Worcester stadium with some 10,000 people in attendance. At the Santo home a window was added to Audrey's bedroom through which pilgrims could stare at the "miracle" girl and pray for her to intercede with God on their behalf. (The window is reminiscent of one in a mobile-home carnival exhibit through which spectators could view "Siamese" twins as they watched TV.) However, the practice was discontinued by order of the bishop.

In preparing the 20/20 segment a producer called SKEPTICAL INQUIRER magazine and discussed with me the phenomenon of weeping icons. Of those that were not due to simple condensation or "sweating," I said, approximately 100 percent were fakes, judging by my experience. That includes oil-yielding icons, which typically involve a non-drying oil (like olive oil) that can stay fresh-looking indefinitely.

We discussed the possibility of using surveillance cameras to monitor the Santo statues, but I pointed out that if trickery were involved it was unlikely that such an investigative technique would be permitted. As Lynn Sherr would subsequently report on camera, "We wanted to do our own test with a surveillance camera in the [home] chapel, but the family prefers to let the commission finish its work first."

Unfortunately, the commission members seem woefully ill-prepared to investigate trickery. Sherr asked commission member Dr. John Madonna, "Did you see any way that anybody was pouring oil or making the oil appear on those objects?" He replied: "No. Especially after we did our examination behind the pictures and under the statues and so forth and found that there was no way that these objects were being fed the oil." Another member, Dr. Robert Ciotone, stated: "We found nothing, no source of the oil."

Actually, the conditions under which the statues and other objects yield oil are consistent with the surreptitious application of a non-drying oil. According to Sherr: "Although no one claims to have seen an object actually start to spout oil" - a very significant fact - "the commissioners were astounded when a religious icon they brought along oozed oil that night." Of course no surveillance cameras were monitoring the icon during that time.

On an episode of CBS's 48 Hours titled "Desperate Measures" (1999), a reporter asked Linda Santo how one would know whether someone in the household was simply applying the oil "in the middle of the night." She replied, "You don't know." "Are you doing this?" Linda was asked. "No," she replied.

Linda Santo did permit 20/20 to take a sample of the oil. It proved to be 75 percent olive oil, "the rest unidentifiable," according to Sherr (1998). She added: "Other independent tests have all yielded different results - in other words nothing conclusive." In fact, analysis of one sample by a Pittsburgh laboratory revealed it to be 80 percent vegetable oil and 20 percent chicken fat, according to The Washington Post, which ordered the test (Weingarten 1998).

The commission's report, while noting that the source of the oil was not yet explained, did correctly conclude, "One cannot presume that the inability to explain something automatically makes it miraculous." (In other words, the commissioners were duly noting the logical fallacy of an argument ad ignorantiam - literally an appeal "to ignorance.") The report added, "We must be careful not to identify this oil as 'holy oil'" - that is, oil blessed by a Catholic priest and used to anoint the ill - and insisted it not be used or offered as such. Prior to this, the Santos distributed packets of oil-soaked cotton balls, often receiving money and other donations in return.

Taken together, the evidence relating to the oil exhudations raises strong suspicions. First, there is the lack of any scientific proof for the alleged phenomenon: not a single case of a weeping effigy has ever been scientifically verified. In fact the history of such reported occurrences is a litany of deception, including self-deception. In the Santo case there is no mere misperception, since the presence of copious amounts of oil - including the "spontaneous" filling of chalices - has been well established. Moreover, the fact that the oil has not been observed to flow strongly suggests prior application. And the varying test results seem less consistent with a genuine phenomenon than with an attempt to adulterate the oil in hopes of confounding the analysis. The presence of chicken fat - which, along with common vegetable oil, is readily available in a home kitchen - seems particularly telling. So does the observation of one volunteer that there tends to be an increase in oil on days pilgrims are expected ("Desperate" 1999).

Even the timing of the phenomenon is suspicious, beginning long after Audrey's accident and following other traumas including her father's several-years desertion of the family and her mother's diagnosis of breast cancer. According to Lynn Sherr (1998)," . . . [J]ust as it seemed that God wasn't listening, the Santos believe he sent them a sign. With no warning and no logic, they say oil suddenly coated a religious portrait in their living room." This was a picture of the Image of Guadalupe - itself a faked "miracle" picture! (Nickell 1993, 29-34) - and it occurred after national media attention had focused on several other instances of "weeping" images.

 

The phenomena that accompany the Santo oil exhudations are also suspect, in part because cases of bogus weeping images have often been attended by other easily faked miracles (Nickell 1993). In this case there are "bleeding" pictures and communion wafers. Especially troubling are reports that stigmata - wounds imitating Jesus' crucifixion - have "mysteriously" appeared on Audrey's body, and on Good Fridays she has reportedly been seen to lie with her arms outstretched, as if crucified. According to one reporter, "Her parents say they cannot explain how their daughter, who cannot normally move herself, becomes positioned in this way" (Harrison 1998).

Although we live in a scientific age, there has been a resurgence in magical thinking, resulting in a revival of religious fundamentalism, the rise of the "New Age" movement, and an increase in "miracle" claims. The appeal is widespread, although it may be especially strong among the economically disadvantaged, where human despair and superstition may coexist. (The Santo phenomena, for example, take place in the midst of Portuguese immigrant families.)

People seem to hunger for some tangible religious experience, and wherever there is such profound want there is the opportunity for what may be called "pious fraud." Money is rarely the primary motive, the usual impetus being to seemingly triumph over adversity, renew the faith of believers, and confound the doubters. An end-justifies-the-means attitude may prevail, but the genuinely religious and the devoutly skeptical may agree on one thing, that the truth must serve as both the means and the end. Ultimately, neither science nor religion can be served by dishonesty.

References

"Desperate Measures." 1999. 48 Hours (CBS-TV), June 24.

Harrison, Ted. 1998. Miracle child. Fortean Times December, 40-41.

Nickell, Joe. 1993. Looking for a Miracle. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

-----. 1997. In the Eye of the Beholder. Free Inquiry Spring, 5.

Sherr, Lynn. 1998. The Miracle of Audrey. 20/20 (ABC News transcript no. 1848), October 4.

Weingarten, Gene. 1998. Tears for Audrey. The Washington Post July 19.

Joe Nickell, CSICOP's Senior Research Fellow, is author of Looking for a Miracle (1993).

COPYRIGHT 1999 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
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