A so-called visionary who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.
Additional Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the evil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue originated from a animal. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“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.
Context and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated 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 a woman 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling 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 sin. His intervention was aimed to combat the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
