A self-styled visionary who drew 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 alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake 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 private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences 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 Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, 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 alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European 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 “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
