A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“As paradoxical as it may seem, she actually feels relief, believing this is an opportunity to reveal the truth of the events with transparency and to definitively put an end to all forms of speculation, misunderstanding and controversy,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree 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 action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
