A self-styled visionary who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences 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 Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case 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 alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
