A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly 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 scheme collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds 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 Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News 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 “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem 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 visions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.