A so-called visionary who attracted many of pilgrims to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept tears of blood has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was sending messages to her, will be tried together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating false visions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of disasters to solicit contributions from their Catholic supporters.
Cardia drew hundreds of people monthly to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a temporary shrine on a hill. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a centre for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of making false predictions, including stating the statue warned her that the evil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the coastal city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective claimed the substance on the statue came from a animal. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which subsequently strengthened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams 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 Incidents
Cardia, who has a previous conviction for bankruptcy fraud, bought the statue in 2016 at a Catholic holy place in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged apparitions of Jesus in the French 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 “glorious cross” that would ensure the purification of sin be built in the town. The authority said that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
Pope Leo authorized a ruling 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 proliferation of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened assertions of visions, weeping statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
