A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected fraud.
Central Charges and Particulars
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be prosecuted together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue forecasts of disasters to attract contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia brought many of people monthly to a lakeside town, a lakeside town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been placed in a makeshift sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scam collected €365,000 in donations from the visitors, who trusted their funds would go towards establishing a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also charged with making untrue prophecies, including claiming the figure alerted her that the evil was planning disasters, 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 initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Connected Events
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, purchased the statue in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office declared that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was alleged to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged apparitions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff authorized a decree last week instructing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from sin. His action was aimed to combat the spread of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and so-called seers.
The former pope cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
