A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a figure of the Virgin Mary shed bloody tears has been sent to trial for suspected deception.
Central Charges and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be tried together with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in April the coming year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making false forecasts of catastrophes to solicit contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia drew 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 shrine on a hill. Over several years, the supposed scheme collected €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who trusted their money would go towards setting up a facility for ill children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing untrue predictions, including claiming the statue alerted her that the devil was planning disasters, for example an earthquake that would devastate Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by communism.
Prosecutors in the port 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 occurrences 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.
Context and Connected Incidents
Cardia, who has a prior sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious pilgrimage site in Međugorje.
News of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were not of supernatural origin. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “glorious cross” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority 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 assisted her son Jesus redeem the world from damnation. His intervention was intended to counter the proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged claims of apparitions, weeping figures, and self-styled prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “are not always real”.
