A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial 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 said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification 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 “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
