A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was planning 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 investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
