A so-called visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, 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 assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.