Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Court Case Over Allegations Virgin Mary Figure Shed Bloody Tears

A so-called visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.

Key Charges and Details

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

They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.

Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.

Context and Related Incidents

Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.

The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.