🔗 Share this article Italian Visionary Faces Fraud Court Case Regarding Allegations Virgin Mary Statue Shed Bloody Tears A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception. Key Charges and Particulars Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year. They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic followers. Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children. Further Claims Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology. Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli. Context and Connected Events Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje. Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared 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 a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”. Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets. The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.