A self-styled visionary who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry 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 subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing 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 action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
