A self-styled visionary who drew many of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed tears of blood has been ordered to stand trial for suspected fraud.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the figure was sending messages to her, will be prosecuted together with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their religious supporters.
Cardia brought many of people each month to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to worship before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scheme collected a large sum in donations from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue warned her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Legal authorities in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the blood on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later labeled a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its regulations on paranormal phenomena as part of a crackdown on frauds and hoaxes.
“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,” said her legal representative, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior conviction for financial crime, bought the figure in 2016 at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the trial came as the Vatican’s religious authority stated that alleged visions of Jesus in the French 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 “magnificent crucifix” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the claimed apparitions were “finally judged to be non-miraculous”.
The pontiff authorized a ruling last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His action was intended to combat the spread of an exaggerated veneration of the Madonna, often on online platforms, that has emboldened assertions of apparitions, crying statues, and so-called prophets.
The late pope warned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “are not always real”.
