Self-proclaimed ‘Mystic’ Faces Fraud Trial Regarding Allegations Madonna Statue Wept Bloody Tears

A self-styled visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.

Key Accusations and Particulars

The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.

They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.

Further Claims

Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds and hoaxes.

“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, the attorney.

Background and Connected Events

Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.

News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

Pope Leo authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.

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