A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial 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 alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
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 redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
