🔗 Share this article Self-proclaimed Visionary Faces Deception Trial Over Allegations Virgin Mary Figure Shed Bloody Tears A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud. Key Charges and Details Gisella Cardia, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year. They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters. Cardia drew many of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children. Additional Claims Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism. Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney. Background and Related Events Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje. News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”. Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets. The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.