Self-proclaimed Visionary Faces Fraud Court Case Over Allegations Virgin Mary Statue Shed Bloody Tears

A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.

Key Accusations and Particulars

The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.

They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.

Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.

Additional Claims

Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy 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 claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Context and Connected Events

Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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

Pope Leo authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.

The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.