A self-styled visionary who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging 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 Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared 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 guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing 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 aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
