A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams and hoaxes.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved 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 veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
