🔗 Share this article Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Trial Regarding Allegations Madonna Figure Wept Bloody Tears A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception. Central Accusations and Particulars The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year. They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers. Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 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 making untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism. Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal 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 Related Events Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje. News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”. Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing 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 counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets. The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.