🔗 Share this article Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Trial Over Allegations Madonna Statue Shed Blood A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud. Central Accusations and Details Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year. They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their religious supporters. Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children. Further Claims Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism. Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney. Context and Related Incidents Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje. News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French 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 “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”. Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers. The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.