A so-called visionary who drew many of devotees to a town near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are charged with staging fake apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit donations from their religious followers.
Cardia drew many of individuals monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the supposed scam collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Additional Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making untrue predictions, including claiming the figure warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an inquiry in 2023 after a private investigator asserted the blood on the statue came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on supernatural 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.
Background and Connected Events
The accused, who has a prior conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have shown himself to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The office announced that the alleged visions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff approved 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 damnation. His intervention was aimed to counter the spread of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of visions, crying figures, and so-called seers.
The former Pope Francis cautioned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
