A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims 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.
Key Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors 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 afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European 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 ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
