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A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.

Central Accusations and Particulars

The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.

They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious followers.

Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.

Further Allegations

Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.

Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.

“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.

Context and Related Events

The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed apparitions 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 redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.

The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.