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 ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
