A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people each month 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 generated a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds 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.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
