A self-styled mystic who drew hundreds of devotees to a community near Rome by asserting that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been ordered to stand trial for suspected deception.
Central Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also stated the statue was transmitting messages to her, will be prosecuted along with her spouse, Gianni Cardia, in the spring the coming year.
They are charged with staging false apparitions of the Virgin Mary and making untrue predictions of catastrophes to attract contributions from their Catholic followers.
Cardia brought many of individuals each month to Trevignano Romano, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the statue, which had been positioned in a makeshift sanctuary on a hill. Over several years, the alleged scam generated €365,000 in offerings from the pilgrims, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Allegations
Cardia is also accused of issuing false prophecies, including stating the statue alerted her that the devil was concocting disasters, for example an tremor that would destroy Rome and the seizure of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia opened an investigation in 2023 after a private investigator claimed the substance on the figure came from a pig. Cardia was later declared a deceiver by the Catholic church, which afterward tightened its rules on supernatural phenomena as part of a crackdown on scams 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,” stated Cardia’s lawyer, Solange Marchingoli.
Background and Connected Incidents
The accused, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the statue in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s doctrinal office stated that supposed apparitions of Jesus in the European town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was alleged to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times asking that a “magnificent crucifix” that would ensure the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority announced that the alleged visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved a decree last week directing Catholics not to refer to Mary as the “co-redeemer”, that is to say that she helped her son Jesus save the world from damnation. His action was intended to counter the proliferation of an extreme worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has encouraged assertions of apparitions, weeping statues, and self-styled seers.
The late pope cautioned in 2023 that appearances of Mary “do not always occur”.