Italian Visionary Confronts Deception Trial Over Claims Virgin Mary Figure Wept Bloody Tears

A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.

Key Charges and Particulars

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

They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.

Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.

Further Allegations

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

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.

Context and Related Events

The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French 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 authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff 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 redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.

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