A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false 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 positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
