A self-styled mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural occurrences 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
