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A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.

Central Charges and Details

The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.

They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.

Further Allegations

Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.

“As paradoxical as it may seem, she actually feels relief, believing this is an opportunity to reveal the truth of the events with transparency and to definitively put an end to all forms of speculation, misunderstanding and controversy,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Background and Related Incidents

Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.

The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.