A so-called mystic who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue 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 figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew many of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on supernatural phenomena 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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to a woman 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to 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 social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
