A self-styled visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions 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 lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
