A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place 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 not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing 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 intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
