A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural 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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
