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A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.

Key Accusations and Details

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

They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.

Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.

Further Claims

Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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 Related Events

The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called seers.

The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.