🔗 Share this article Italian Visionary Confronts Deception Court Case Regarding Allegations Madonna Statue Shed Bloody Tears A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception. Central Accusations and Details Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year. They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters. Cardia brought hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children. Further Claims Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology. Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened 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, Solange Marchingoli. Context and Related Events Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje. Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”. Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets. The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.