🔗 Share this article Self-proclaimed Visionary Faces Deception Court Case Regarding Allegations Madonna Figure Shed Bloody Tears A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception. Key Charges and Details The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year. They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters. Cardia drew many of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for sick children. Further Claims Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology. Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli. Background and Related Incidents Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Reports of the case 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 shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”. Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets. The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.