🔗 Share this article Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Deception Trial Over Allegations Madonna Statue Shed Bloody Tears A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception. Key Charges and Details The accused woman, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year. They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters. Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children. Additional Claims Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology. Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and deceptions. “Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli. Background and Connected Incidents The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”. Pope Leo authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called prophets. The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.