A so-called mystic who attracted hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications 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 making false forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme generated €365,000 in donations from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, 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 stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European 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 guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
