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A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.

Central Charges and Details

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

They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious supporters.

Cardia drew many of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.

Additional Allegations

Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds and deceptions.

“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 Incidents

The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.

Reports 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 appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced 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 save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.

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