A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting 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 detective asserted the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
