A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
