🔗 Share this article Italian Visionary Confronts Deception Trial Regarding Claims Madonna Statue Wept Bloody Tears A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception. Key Charges and Details Gisella Cardia, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year. They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious supporters. Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children. Further Allegations Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism. 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 labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli. Background and Related Incidents The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”. The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers. The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.