🔗 Share this article Italian Visionary Confronts Fraud Court Case Regarding Allegations Madonna Figure Shed Blood A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception. Key Accusations and Details The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year. They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious followers. Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children. Additional Allegations Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including claiming the statue 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. Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds 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. Background and Connected Events Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje. Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged 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 authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”. The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets. The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.