A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign on frauds and deceptions.
“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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought 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 appeared to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved 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 counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
