A so-called mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed 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 fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic 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 collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and deceptions.
“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, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree 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 sin. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
