Italian ‘Mystic’ Confronts Fraud Court Case Regarding Allegations Madonna Figure Wept Blood

A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.

Central Accusations and Particulars

The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.

They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.

Cardia brought many of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.

Additional Allegations

Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated 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 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.

Background and Connected Events

The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French 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 guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing 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 intervention was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.

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