A so-called mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News 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 said to have appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
