A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray 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 believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations 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, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared 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 asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week instructing 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 aimed to counter the spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
