A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure warned her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week instructing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
