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A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.

Central Charges and Details

The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.

They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, 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 figure warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.

Context and Related Events

The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed 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 action was intended to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.

The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.