Self-proclaimed Visionary Confronts Deception Trial Over Claims Madonna Statue Wept Bloody Tears

A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.

Key Charges and Particulars

Gisella Cardia, who also stated 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 staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.

Cardia brought hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.

Additional Allegations

Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, 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 initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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, the attorney.

Background and Connected Events

The accused, who has a previous sentence 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 declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.

The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.

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