🔗 Share this article Italian Visionary Faces Fraud Court Case Over Allegations Virgin Mary Statue Shed Bloody Tears A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud. Central Charges and Particulars Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year. They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers. Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children. Additional Allegations Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism. Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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. Background and Related Incidents The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed 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 a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”. Pope Leo authorized a ruling 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 sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers. The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.