A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a campaign 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Connected Events
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
