A self-styled visionary who attracted hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with making false predictions, including stating the figure alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake 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 private investigator asserted the substance on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a crackdown on scams and deceptions.
“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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Context and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European 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 ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree 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 aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
