A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic 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 deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
