A self-styled mystic who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, 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 opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized 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 sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.