A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the devil 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 opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena 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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French 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 ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
