A so-called visionary who attracted many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was planning 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 substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports 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 Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a decree 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 damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
