🔗 Share this article Italian Visionary Confronts Fraud Court Case Over Allegations Virgin Mary Figure Shed Blood A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud. Central Accusations and Details The accused woman, who also claimed 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 staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers. Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children. Additional Allegations Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology. Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney. Background and Connected Incidents Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority 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 appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”. Pope Leo approved 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 intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers. The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.