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

Central Charges and Details

The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.

They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.

Cardia brought many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.

Additional Allegations

Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.

Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds 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.

Context and Related Events

Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.

Pope Leo approved a decree 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 intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.

The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.