A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena 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.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
