A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with orchestrating false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective claimed the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations 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 her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority announced that the alleged apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
Pope Leo authorized 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 redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
