A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to attract donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
