A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood 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.
“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, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
