A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious supporters.
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 makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“Despite the irony, she finds comfort, viewing this as a chance to clarify the facts openly and conclusively stop all rumors, confusion, and disputes,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
