🔗 Share this article Italian Visionary Faces Fraud Court Case Over Allegations Virgin Mary Figure Wept Bloody Tears A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud. Central Accusations and Particulars Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year. They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters. Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children. Further Allegations Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology. Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes. “Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli. Context and Connected Events The accused, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”. Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers. The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.