A so-called visionary who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
