A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities 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 declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural phenomena 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 Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions 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 “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
