A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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 said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
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 damnation. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
