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A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.

Central Accusations and Particulars

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

They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters.

Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.

Additional Claims

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

Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.

Context and Related Events

Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.

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