A so-called visionary who attracted hundreds of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring next year.
They are charged with orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over several years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would devastate Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated 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 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,” said her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged 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 “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a decree 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 damnation. His action was aimed to counter the proliferation of an extreme veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of visions, weeping figures, and so-called prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.
