A so-called mystic who attracted many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Key Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary 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 setting up a centre for ill children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making false prophecies, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown 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, the attorney.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for financial crime, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial 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 alleged to have appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled seers.
The late Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
