A so-called mystic who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the statue originated from a animal. 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.
“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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
