A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 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 “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
