A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
