A self-styled mystic who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds and deceptions.
“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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged 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 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 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 helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
