A self-styled mystic who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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 Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo 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 action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
