A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew hundreds of people each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, 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 ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including stating the statue alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on supernatural phenomena as part of a campaign on scams and hoaxes.
“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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed visions of Jesus in the European 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 guarantee the purification of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to call Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
