A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds 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 her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His intervention was aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
