A so-called mystic who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for alleged fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with staging fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing false forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to Trevignano Romano, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scam generated a large sum 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 stating the statue warned her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate 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 detective asserted the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on paranormal occurrences as part of a crackdown on frauds and deceptions.
“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 Cardia’s lawyer, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the trial 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 appeared to a woman 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling 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 intervention was intended to counter the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened claims of visions, crying figures, and self-styled seers.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
