A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena 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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The office said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
