A so-called visionary who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“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 Related Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing 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 intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
