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A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.

Central Accusations and Particulars

The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.

They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious followers.

Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.

Further Allegations

Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.

Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and deceptions.

“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 Connected Incidents

Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.

News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.

The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.