🔗 Share this article Italian ‘Mystic’ Faces Fraud Trial Over Allegations Madonna Statue Shed Blood A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud. Central Charges and Particulars Gisella Cardia, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year. They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters. Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children. Additional Allegations Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism. Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions. “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. Background and Related Incidents The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 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 apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”. The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets. The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.