A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected 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 charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds and deceptions.
“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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree 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 sin. His intervention was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
