A self-styled mystic who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its regulations on paranormal occurrences 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
