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A self-styled visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.

Central Charges and Details

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

They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.

Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.

Further Claims

Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences 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 Related Events

The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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

Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.

The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.