A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions 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 purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree 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 exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
