A so-called visionary who drew hundreds of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the figure was sending communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought many of people each month to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also accused of making untrue prophecies, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the figure originated from a animal. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and deceptions.
“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, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing 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 aimed to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and so-called seers.
The late Pope Francis warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
