Italian Visionary Confronts Fraud Court Case Regarding Allegations Virgin Mary Figure Wept Blood

A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.

Central Accusations and Details

The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.

They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic followers.

Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.

Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Background and Connected Incidents

Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.

News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.

The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.