A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the figure originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its rules on supernatural occurrences as part of a campaign on scams 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,” said Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of visions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
