A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Central Accusations and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to attract donations from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with issuing false predictions, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by communism.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a detective asserted the blood on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal phenomena as part of a campaign on scams 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,” stated her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Context and Related Incidents
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a ruling last week directing Catholics not to call 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 spread of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has encouraged assertions of visions, crying statues, and so-called seers.
The late pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
