A self-styled mystic who drew many of pilgrims to a town near Rome by claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary wept bloody tears has been sent to trial for alleged deception.
Key Accusations and Details
The accused woman, who also claimed the statue was transmitting communications to her, will be tried along with her husband, Gianni Cardia, in April next year.
They are accused of orchestrating fake visions of the Virgin Mary and issuing untrue predictions of disasters to solicit contributions from their religious followers.
Cardia brought hundreds of people monthly to a lakeside town, a scenic town near Rome, to pray before the figure, which had been placed in a temporary sanctuary on a elevation. Over a number of years, the alleged scheme generated a large sum in donations from the visitors, who believed their funds would go towards establishing a facility for sick children.
Further Claims
Cardia is also charged with making untrue predictions, including stating the figure warned her that the devil was concocting calamities, for example an earthquake that would destroy Rome and the takeover of the Catholic church by political ideology.
Prosecutors in the port city of Civitavecchia initiated an inquiry in 2023 after a detective asserted the substance on the statue originated from a pig. Cardia was later declared a fraud by the Catholic church, which afterward strengthened its rules on paranormal occurrences 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,” stated her legal representative, the attorney.
Background and Related Events
Cardia, who has a previous sentence for bankruptcy fraud, purchased the figure in 2016 at a religious holy place in Međugorje.
Reports of the case came as the Vatican’s religious authority declared that supposed visions of Jesus in the French town of Dozulé in the 1970s were deemed non-miraculous. Jesus was said to have appeared to Madeleine Aumont 49 times requesting that a “glorious cross” that would guarantee the cleansing of sin be constructed in the town. The authority said that the claimed visions were “considered, definitively, as not supernatural in origin”.
The pontiff approved 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 proliferation of an exaggerated worship of the Madonna, often on social media, that has emboldened claims of apparitions, crying figures, and so-called prophets.
The former pope warned in 2023 that apparitions of Mary “do not always occur”.
