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A so-called mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.

Key Accusations and Details

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

They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.

Further Claims

Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.

Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Context and Connected Events

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

News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions 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 requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.

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