A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting disasters, 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 inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
