A self-styled visionary who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was transmitting communications to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue forecasts of catastrophes to attract donations from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the visitors, who believed their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover 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 blood on the figure came from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on frauds 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 Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for financial crime, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The office said that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “joint savior”, that is to say that she assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from sin. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled prophets.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
