A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of individuals each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
